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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 8 May 1929

Vol. 29 No. 13

Juries Protection Bill, 1929—Second Stage.

It will be within the recollection of this House that two very terrible crimes were committed recently in this city. In one an attempt was made to murder Mr. White, a juryman, who, in a perfectly clear case, had, with his fellow-jurymen, brought in a verdict of "guilty." Fortunately in this case, though Mr. White received very serious injuries, his assailants did not achieve their full object. Unfortunately in another case, the case of Mr. Armstrong, his assailants were more successful. In cold blood they murdered this unfortunate young man. A more deliberate, more unjustifiable murder could not be committed. It remains and must remain an indelible stain on this country. It shocked and it must shock the feelings of every person in this country who fears God and who believes that the Ten Commandments are still a binding force on the consciences of men. What did Mr. White do? What was his offence? A person was charged with, on two different occasions, shooting at two different Guards, with intent to do them grievous bodily harm. The case was perfectly clear. Mr. White and his fellow-jurymen brought in the only verdict they could in conscience bring in, a verdict of guilty. For this an attempt was made to murder Mr. White, and the names of the other jurors have been circulated far and wide. Certain newspapers— disreputable I style them—have expressed their approval of these acts.

The approbation of those who consider that jurymen, that witnesses, that Civic Guards are outlaws and have no moral right to live in this country has been freely, widely expressed. What had Mr. Armstrong done? He had given evidence—im-material evidence, in fact, because without his evidence a verdict of guilty must equally have been brought in. He had given evidence against four young men charged with the larceny of a Union Jack. These men were found guilty. They were not sentenced to any term of imprisonment. They were released immediately the verdict was brought in. For this, Mr. Armstrong was murdered. It is perfectly obvious that the criminal association that does these things has its organisers —men almost indifferent as to whom they murder, provided they can get murder done. It seems these organisers have instruments to their hands willing to carry out their mandates, no matter how terrible those mandates may be. Now, these two crimes have led us to make a very close investigation into the working of the jury system in this country. We have examined the workings of that system very narrowly and we have concluded that real improvements in the jury system can be effected and for that purpose we have introduced this Bill, not as a temporary expedient, but as a permanent measure. We are altering the existing system so as to make it meet present-day requirements. In some respects, we are innovating, in other respects we are retracing our steps, but we are striving always to safeguard the lives and liberties of jurymen and witnesses and providing, as far as it is humanly possible for us to provide, that justice will be done between the people in this country and the persons who are charged with crime. We are endeavouring to see that no innocent man shall be convicted and, on the other hand, that no criminal shall escape the punishment due to his crime.

I will now go through the Bill shortly, section by section. The first section is merely interpretative and constructive. The second section gives power to transfer, in certain cases, to the county registrar, duties now imposed upon the under sheriff. No doubt, it is within the knowledge of the House that the office of under sheriff is an office which is being abolished universally in this country, that as soon as the existing under sheriffs resign their office or their office otherwise falls in, the duties now carried out by the under sheriff will be carried out by the county registrar. Section 2 enables that procedure to be expedited; without the resignation or other falling-in of the office of under sheriff, where it is deemed expedient, the county registrar will have the duty of preparing the jurors' list and summoning the jurors. The object, of course, of that is that there may be more secrecy as to the names of those who are called upon to serve upon juries. That leads me to Section 3 of the Act, which provides that the jury panel shall be a confidential, official document and that the accused person shall not be entitled as of right to a copy of the jury panel.

Here, as I mentioned a few moments ago, we are retracing our steps. We are going back to the old common law. Under the common law, down to the 17th and 18th Victoria, cap. 26, no person indicted for any offence was entitled to a copy of the jury panel. By that particular statute, an English statute passed in the time of Queen Anne was made to extend to this country, and persons tried for the crime of high treason or tried for misprision of treason were entitled to a copy of the jury panel. No other prisoners were entitled to a copy of the jury panel, and that is the existing law in England to this very day. In England, a person charged with any offence, except treason or misprision of treason, is not entitled to a copy of the jury panel. In Ireland, an alteration was made by the Juries Act, 1871, which has been practically, in effect. carried on by our Juries Act of 1927. Under those Acts, any person, whether he was connected with the case or not, was entitled for a trifling sum to obtain a copy of the panel of jurors. Everybody who lives in this country and who keeps his ears and eyes open must know how that right of the public to obtain the jury panel has been abused. Quite recently, not merely here in the City of Dublin, but also in country districts, jurors have been circularised, have been threatened, and every effort has been made to tamper with the sources of justice. That is a condition of affairs that we cannot allow to continue. Accordingly, we revert to the old principle, that the prisoner shall have his right of challenge as it exists at present, but that nobody shall have a document setting out the names of jurors. By those means, jurors will be protected, when they are summoned, from the threats and intimidation to which they are at present exposed by certain persons.

Section 4 of the Act goes on to explain how the jury shall be called. At present, under Sections 46 and 47 of the principal Act—that is the Juries Act of 1927—the names of the jurymen are called over in Court. They answer to their names in Court. Their names are marked off. They are then recalled for the special case, and are challenged or are not challenged, as the case may be. Finally, if they are not challenged or stood-by, they are sworn. That goes on until the full jury of twelve has been empanelled. Now, under the new procedure, it will be open to a juryman, if he wishes, to go in before the county registrar and have his name mentioned to the county registrar.

The county registrar will then tick off his name upon the list. The panel of those who have not availed themselves of that method will then be called over in court, but while it is being called over in court there will be nobody present except the other jurymen and certain persons whose names are set out in sub-section C. The only other persons in court will be the officers of the court, Guards on duty in the court, and, if he wishes, the presiding Judge. From that time onward, that is when the public are admitted, the jurymen will be called by their numbers and only by their numbers. In that fashion, we trust that we have provided that the names of jurymen who are sworn and empanelled to try the issue between the people of this State and the prisoner at the bar will be unknown to those persons who are actuated by criminal designs against the lives of jurymen. In Section 5 we introduce a new but, I will submit to the House, a very sound principle. That is the principle that henceforth there shall not be required either for conviction or for acquittal a unanimous verdict of twelve jurymen. Under the provisions of this Bill, a majority of nine jurymen will be sufficient to secure acquittal or conviction, as the case may be. It is not very easy to know precisely when the principle of a unanimous jury came into English law. Juries were originally not persons empanelled to try facts. They were neighbours who were collected together to try the guilt or innocence of a person upon the local knowledge that they themselves possessed. A long time ago the system was changed and the juries became the judges of the guilt or innocence of the person charged before them, not on their inherent knowledge, but on the evidence sworn before them. The principle of a unanimous finding of a jury is a principle which is only to be found in the English law. It exists in no law in the world except in British law, and in those codes of law which are founded on English law. When I said British law, I should have said, of course, English law, because in Scotland, for example, a majority verdict is quite sufficient. In France, Germany and all other countries in which a jury system has been adopted for the trial of prisoners, a majority verdict is sufficient. In old Roman law, as far as they had jurors at all, they were rather professional jurors, and a majority verdict of those was deemed sufficient. Later on, in the glorious days of Roman jurisprudence, the age of Justinian, jurors were swept away altogether.

At the present time, we have to consider what jury system is suited to this country and we have come to the conclusion that a majority verdict is more suited to the needs of this country. A prisoner may be indicted, the case may be clear against him, one juryman or two jurymen may hold out and repeated trials have to take place. On the other hand, a man may be indicted, the evidence against him may be weak, nine, ten or eleven jurymen may wish for his acquittal and yet one man can stand out. If there is a real doubt in the case in the minds of the jury, then they still can disagree—that is, if they are divided in a proportion different from nine to three, they can still disagree. But it seems to me so clear that, even if there were no historical argument behind it, common sense would demand that a majority would be sufficient to determine the question of guilt or innocence. Section 6 in sub-section (1) abrogates a certain method of trial of a certain issue which used to exist in this country. If a person, on being indicted, did not plead either guilty or not guilty, a jury was empanelled to try whether he was mute of malice or by the act of God. At one time, if a man was found mute of malice by a jury, he was condemned to suffer peine forte jure, that is to say, he was pressed down until his torturers forced him to say "guilty" or "not guilty," or death came. That system of peine forte et jure has long since been done away with, but when a man is found mute of malice a plea of "not guilty" is entered on his behalf.

The question as to whether a man is mute of malice or mute by the act of God is always a very simple one to determine. There never can be any real doubt about it. Accordingly, we have left it to the judge to decide as to whether a man is mute of malice or mute by the act of God. It might, indeed, be argued, that it is unnecessary to have this provision at all, that if a man is mute in the dock that there and then a verdict of "not guilty" should be entered on his behalf, and the trial proceeded with. But there is a possibility that somebody not mute of malice, but mute by the act of God might be indicted and the court might not know that fact. He may not have the proper interpreter there to explain to him the procedure taking place and the nature of the evidence that was being given against him. In a case like that, somebody who knows the deaf and dumb alphabet or who has been used to conversing with the prisoner is always sworn as an interpreter. There has been in this country a disposition on the part of certain persons to hold themselves out openly as above the law and to refuse to recognise the courts which have been set up under the authority of the people of the Irish Free State.

There are certain other persons who, when in court, behave themselves in a manner unbecoming to the dignity of the court, and in consequence we have introduced here a provision that if a person at any stage of his trial, by any act or omission, displays gross disrespect of the court, or refuses to recognise the court, or refuses to recognise the authority or jurisdiction of the court, or does any act (other than standing mute or lawfully objecting in due form of law to the jurisdiction of the court to try him on such charge) which in the opinion of the judge is equivalent to a refusal to recognise the court, or the authority or jurisdiction thereof, or in any other way acts disrespectfully or contumaciously towards the court, such person shall be guilty of an offence against the court and the judge shall forthwith sentence him to suffer a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months. Sub-section (4) of that section goes on to say that the trial may either proceed, in the discretion of the judge, or a sentence imposed by the judge of not greater than six months shall take effect there and then.

Section 7 deals with the clearing of the court in certain cases. It might not be much good to have the name of the jurymen concealed if any number of persons could come into court and some of them possibly recognise some of the jurymen and then be in the position to give information to those persons who approve of or carry out the murders of jurymen and witnesses. Accordingly, this provision has been brought in: When "an officer of the Gárda Síochána not below the rank of supérintendent states on oath to the judge presiding at such trial that in the opinion of such officer it is necessary for the protection of the witnesses and jurors concerned in such trial that the public should be excluded from the court during such trial, the judge shall order the court to be cleared and shall not proceed with such trial until the court has been cleared in accordance with this section." But though the court is cleared and the general public excluded, yet persons who are bona fide representatives of bona fide newspapers will be allowed admission to the court and can take notes of what happens in the court and keep the public thoroughly informed of the procedure and what has taken place in the court.

Section 8 enables the judge, if he is satisfied that an attempt is being made to interfere with jurors, or an attempt to intimidate jurors, or that a proper and fair trial of a prisoner will not take place, to adjourn the trial of that prisoner, and he can so adjourn it again if circumstances have not changed for the better in the meantime. He may adjourn or not adjourn just as he thinks right. Section 9 prohibits the publication of the names of jurymen, and makes it an offence to disclose or to state, truly or untruly, that a man served upon any particular jury. Section 10 regulates the methods by which jurymen can be served—that is to say, they can be served by ordinary, and not necessarily, by registered post.

Section 11 makes it an offence for any person who prints, publishes, distributes, sells, or offers or exposes for sale, or posts up or otherwise exposes in any public place, or imports into Saorstát Eireann any statement, notice, article, or other matter in writing, or any book, newspaper, magazine, journal, or other document containing any statement, notice, article or other matter urging, encouraging or exhorting or calculated to induce or persuade persons summoned or engaged as jurors for or in the trial of criminal issues or of any particular class of criminal issues or any particular criminal issue to refrain from acting as such jurors or to act as such jurors otherwise than in accordance with their oath and duty as such jurors. Sub-sections (b) and (c) deal with persons who endeavour to intimidate jurors and provide the appropriate penalty.

Section 12 provides the penalty for any person who, during the course of criminal proceedings, loiters in the vicinity of a courthouse where the proceedings are going on. That again is to provide that this particular association, who are endeavouring by intimidation and murder to prevent jurymen carrying out their duties, will not be able by posting their touts round the courthouse to follow jurymen.

I have gone through the provisions of this Bill. It has been framed to protect jurymen and witnesses and to improve generally the administration of criminal justice in this country. I hope that these ends which we have before our eyes are ends for the achievement of which we shall have the support of all persons in this House. It is my hope that jurors and witnesses will know that the whole State is behind them when they discharge their duties. Before I sit down I want to say this: If this Bill does not prove to be effective, if it does not succeed in safeguarding the lives of our people, and if it does not achieve a fair and impartial administration of the law, then we will adopt other methods of gaining these ends. Trial by jury, as amended by this Bill, is I believe the very best method of obtaining the impartial administration of the criminal law. Trial by jury in normal times, and under normal circumstances, is the best of all systems— of that I am perfectly convinced. But trial by jury is only a means to an end; it is not an end in itself. If, after the passage of this Bill, it fails, reluctantly—regretful that such a situation should arise—but unhesitatingly we shall adopt some other method, while the need lasts, for a certain class of criminal. We are determined that the criminal will not be allowed to dominate this country, and that the efforts of no body of men will be successful in turning existing order into disorder and terminating the reign of law which, happily, is now established amongst us.

The Minister for Justice, I think, indicated his whole position and the attitude of the Government in the last part of his speech. He threatened that there was another twist of the screw, as one of his colleagues mentioned on a former occasion, available for them. When I was listening to the Minister, I felt that I was reading some of the speeches that were made by Forster or Balfour, or, in later times, by Sir Hamar Greenwood. The whole attitude of the Ministry, and particularly the Ministry of Justice, in recent times has been one that certainly proves a thesis which I remember was maintained by Dr. MacNeill in the old "Volunteer": "Continuity of British government in this country." The Minister tells us that this Bill is intended merely to protect jurors and to protect witnesses and that, as a matter of fact, it is not intended at all as an emergency measure, that it is intended as an improvement, if you please, of the law. It is going back, he says. Yes. It goes back behind Magna Charta. It undoes, or attempts to undo, everything practically that men fought for—personal and public liberty—in any of those countries that won freedom. It is trying to destroy all those truths. The Minister then hopes that he will find support from every Deputy in this House. He knew perfectly well that the sort of Bill he brought in here is certainly not the type of Bill that is going to receive any sort of support from this side of the House anyhow. When Forster brought in one of his Coercion Acts, he tried to justify it by telling of the thousands of cases of intimidation, and so on, that had occurred in Ireland in the previous year. And when his statement was examined, it was found that these were simply letters that could have been sent by the Sergeant Sheridans and the rest just as well as by any, body belonging to any Irish organisation.

There have been two crimes committed in this country. Nobody on these benches has attempted in any way whatever to condone these crimes. Is it because two crimes have been committed that the people as a whole are to be deprived of the safeguards they have in trial by jury? There are two things which have been recognised by everybody who has examined the basis of constitutional freedom, and they are the right to have cause shown why you should be in prison, the right to your liberty unless you can be shown to have been deprived of it by due process of law; and the second is this right of being tried by a number of your peers chosen by lot and chosen impartially. This particular Bill seeks to do away with both.

The citizen ordinarily is at a grave disadvantage as against the State. Take the ordinary case of the disadvantage he is in — the disadvantage which the Minister for Justice never fails to use — the disadvantage that the State will hear the expenses of repeated appeals when one of their officers is charged before a court with an offence. That is a disadvantage. But in a case where the State sets out with all the powers behind it to try to get a conviction against an individual who is suspected, then the only safeguard that that individual has is that twelve ordinary citizens will have to be empanelled to try his case. These disadvantages are enough, but these disadvantages are by this Bill going to be made immensely greater. In fact, the person who is accused and brought up for trial under this Bill has no chance whatever against the State.

A man who is accused of murder can be tried under this Bill having hardly a chance of being saved. Even under the law of the British, when unanimity was necessary, we know there were cases, as the Maamtrasna case, where the prisoners were unjustly found guilty, condemned and executed. Are Deputies prepared to take upon themselves the responsibility for saying that we will have not one but several cases, if the Executive are prepared to take the steps that this Bill would seem to indicate for depriving the ordinary citizen of these safeguards? On a previous occasion, I remarked here that the institutions that have grown up through a long series of years and have been accepted ought not to be put aside and destroyed simply because a particular Executive finds it convenient for the moment to put them aside.

The ordinary method of trial by jury and unanimity of verdict has been accepted. Take, for instance, the case of unanimity of verdict, which has been accepted mainly on the theory that a man is innocent unless he is proved guilty, and that if there is any reasonable doubt he should get the benefit of the doubt. That is all reversed in this Bill. Let us take the provisions and follow the Minister for Defence through them— no, the Minister for Justice——

They change quickly.

Yes, they do change pretty quickly. First of all, we have Section 2. Why is it necessary at all to have this Section 2? Why under-sheriffs could not perform their duties in the future as in the past has not been explained to us. I hope we will get some explanation for it. So far, it has not been made clear. It is not a very important part of the Bill. The important parts of the Bill are those that deal with the secrecy of the jury—the secrecy of the jury not merely from the public, but the secrecy of the names of the jury from the accused. Public trial, trial by jury in open court, is a safeguard for individual liberty as against a tyrannical Executive. What does this Bill do with regard to this particular safeguard? Up to this, when a man was accused, he knew who the jurors were. He was given the right to challenge and the right to object to any juror who, he thought, might have a personal bias or a bias of any kind against him or against a juror whose judgment, because of some act of his in the past or because of some action, could not be regarded as impartial. The accused could object to that man. He knew the man's antecedents. He knew whether or not he was going to get from that man a fair trial. But he is not going to get that knowledge any more. He is not to know who are the men on whose judgement his life, perhaps, is to depend. He is not going to know whether these men are proved already to be men whose judgment cannot be impartial.

What about the State? Is the Executive going to be in a similar position? The State has unlimited rights as regards telling any juror to stand by. The State, through its officials, can get full knowledge of every juryman who is called to serve on a case.

Every man except such as they think is likely to bring in the verdict they want, is going to be told by them to stand by. The State already, with all the resources at its command, has an undue advantage over the prisoner. What is going to be the position now when the State can practically pack a jury so as to secure a verdict? That is what it amounts to. Formerly, when they packed a jury they did it in the face of the whole community. The whole community saw it; they saw all the O's and the Macs being told to stand aside. Gentlemen with names of another character were put up because it was known that they were the plantation element and could be relied upon to maintain what they choose to call law and order, as the Minister for Justice would call it to-day. In the new position, we have an Executive who can, in secret, find out who the men are whom they want, and who the men are whom they object to, and they can pack their jury without incurring the public odium that attached to it in the past. The public are not to know. The accused are not to know. Any journalist who might be suspected of a love of fair play to such an extent that he was going to reveal the injustice of these secret trials and run certain risks in order that fair play might be given and that the people of the country might be warned of what is taking place, can be excluded in advance. They might as well exclude the public altogether. The whole principle of trial by jury, trial by twelve impartial citizens, is gone, or is going with this Bill, if you make it an Act.

The next section of the Bill deals with a verdict by nine members of the jury. The principle of a unanimous verdict was upheld and maintained because the underlying principle was that the accused was innocent until he was proved to be guilty, and that if there was any doubt whatsoever he should get the benefit of the doubt. Here we have a verdict by the majority. In other words, if the Executive, in packing its jury, passes over by accident one or two people who would not be prejudiced against the accused and if they stood up and maintained that the facts were not as the Executive would like to have them proved—notwithstanding that, the Executive can secure its verdict. They only want nine. There might be something to be said for a majority verdict if you had an open jury, in open court, impartially selected. But when you take a majority-rule verdict side by side with the secrecy of the jury then undoubtedly what you are giving is an instrument to the Executive of the day to accuse and secure practically the condemnation of anybody that they want to get a condemnation against. We have, of course, "standing mute" and non-recognition of the court. The present Executive in years not so long ago taught or followed because, as it happened they did not begin it—at any rate, they supported the practice of not recognising courts which had not the sanction of the Irish people.

Hear, hear!

We know what these courts were. We know the efforts that were made to destroy their power, and these men know it. They show they have not themselves the confidence that the existing courts are backed by public opinion when they have to bring in measures of this particular kind in order to deal with the same attitude towards the new courts.

The cowardly little gun bullies.

There are more gun bullies in the service of the Minister for Justice to-day than in any other organisation in the country.

Who are they?

They will be the jurors who are going to try these people.

We will name them if you like.

Stick to the jurors now.

Speak afterwards about the gun bullies.

It has been suggested——

Some people know a good deal about them.

Shut up.

When the Executive wants to empanel its jury now it can, if it wants to, get some of the agents of the Minister for Justice. The punishment for those who refuse to recognise the authority of these courts is to be six months' imprisonment. There was punishment for that before. Many men who were against the British, even when they were innocent of the particular charges that were preferred against them, were prepared to let the trial go by default and face the punishment, and again there will be men who, if they sincerely believe in their opinions, will face this punishment in the same manner. It is not by measures like this that you are going to deal with the situation that arises or that has arisen. The next section tells us that the courts can be cleared on the word of the Superintendent of the Civic Guard.

Under Section 8 the Executive can get by another method what it has been securing in violation of all law in the past-keeping prisoners for an indefinite period without bringing them to trial. Speedy trial is another of the fundamental rules of justice, but the Executive here have constantly and persistently ignored that principle in the past. They have kept men for a year without trial. Then they were tried and acquitted.

Recently they have, without trial, kept men over the statutory period of 24 hours. Judges have found that they were guilty of that, and now, in order that they may have a weapon at their disposal to keep men, against whom they cannot bring forward any evidence, untried as long as they choose, all they have to do is to get some of their agents to make representations in the court that intimidation had been used on the jury. The right of trial by twelve impartial men is gone under Section 3. Under Section 8 the right to be tried speedily, and the right to be free unless it can be shown that you have been deprived of your liberty by due process of law, have gone. Under Section 8 it becomes an easy matter for the Executive to keep a man waiting for trial for some months. If he is brought up for trial it can be represented to the judge that some of the jury have been intimidated. The judge will accordingly postpone the trial, and the same procedure will go on as often as the Executive of the day requires it. The penalties are really the least important, whether their amount is great or small. The fundamental point is that a person is to be punished because he stands for the rights that have been regarded in the past, by anybody who has studied the question of liberty, as sacred. Why is all this being done? It is done because we are told that one man was wounded, one juror was wounded and another man, a witness, was killed.

Murdered. Very good.

Yes, murdered.

All right; I have said that word without any dictation from Deputy Gorey or the Minister for Justice. Even if there were two members of the community, or more than two—ten, fifteen or twenty—are we all going to be deprived of our rights? Is it going to be made possible for any tyrannical Executive, or any unscrupulous Executive, to use the machinery that is provided in this Bill to deprive men of their liberty and, perhaps, of their lives? They talk about purifying, and instead of that they are polluting the whole thing. The whole institutions of the law are going to be polluted by the process they suggest. The Minister for Justice told us that in the glorious days of Roman law there were no juries. Well, that was decent.

What I told the Deputy was that in the time of Justinian, when the Roman law was considered to have reached its highest pinnacle, they had done away with the system of professional jurymen.

Why not do away with it now?

Exactly. Let us have the jury system or let us not have it.

Hear, hear! Preserve it.

Who is going to preserve it? You are going to preserve the jury system when you have got the backing of the people for your laws and when you can depend upon twelve citizens to feel that they are maintaining order.

And have one only wounded.

You are much more efficient.

When the Deputy was nice and snug in the barrackroom his agents did something more than wound them, and well he knows it. (Interruptions.)

Deputy de Valera should be allowed to continue his speech.

As I have said——

I want to be understood. My interruption was not in any way personal to the Deputy. I wanted to draw his attention to the fact that he had stated that a juror was only wounded.

I said I was referring to the facts in the two cases cited by the Minister for Justice. I said that these two cases did not constitute a valid reason why the people as a whole should be deprived of the safeguards that lie in trial by jury. I say that nothing else has been put before the House as a justification for this Bill. The Minister for Justice realised that he has no justification for it, and he wanted to pretend, if you please, that we are only improving the law, that we are going back to Justinian, to the glorious days, the golden age, when such things as juries did not stand in the way of the will of the Executive being all-powerful. I, for one, hope that the House will show that they intend breaking this continuity that started with the Act of Union. Let us just run over them for one moment and see what they were. Immediately after the Union they started in 1801 with 41 George III.— the alleged purpose of which was the suppression of rebellion. In 1802-3 you had another Act, an Act for the suspension of habeas corpus. Portion of that Act was designed for the suppression of rebellion. In 1803-4 you again had the suspension of habeas corpus. In another section of the Act you had again the suppression of rebellion. In the same year you had an Act called the Peace Preservation Act which was intended to restrict the use and possession of arms. In 1807 you had another Peace Preservation Act. In each of the years 1810, 1812 and 1813 you had a similar Act. In 1814 you had an Act called the Peace Preservation Act, and one of its provisions was intended to prevent unlawful combination. In the same year there was an Act intended to prevent aggravated assaults. In 1814-15 you had a Peace Preservation Act. In 1817 there was a similar Act, and in 1820 you had an Act to restrict the use and possession of arms. In 1821 and in 1829 you had Acts for the same purpose.

Perhaps the Deputy would tell us when the Statute of Limitations was passed?

Evidently the resources of civilisation are not exhausted, as the Minister told us. In 1823 there was another Act passed to deal with insurrection. In 1824 there was a similar Act. In 1829 there was an Act to deal with dangerous assembly. In 1830, 1831 and 1832 there were Acts passed to restrict the use of firearms.

The Treaty wiped out all those Acts.

You only started it properly then.

In 1833 an Act was passed to deal with local disturbances. In 1835 there was another Peace Preservation Act. There was another Act called the Arms and Gunpowder Restriction Act. In 1838 a similar Act was passed. In 1839 there was an Act to deal with unlawful societies. In the same year an Act was passed to deal with aggravated assault. In 1841 there was an Act to prohibit the importation of arms. In 1843 there was an Act to deal with aggravated assault. In 1847-48, 11 & 12 Vic. ch. 2 there was an Act for the prevention of crime. In 1847-8 there was an Act for the suspension of habeas corpus. In the same year an Act was passed to deal with unlawful combination. In 1849 there was an Act dealing with aggravated assault. In 1850 there was an Act called the Crimes Outrage Act. In 1852 there was another Act to deal with crime and outrage. In 1854 a similar Act was passed. There was a variation of that in 1854-5 when there was a Peace Preservation Act. In each of the years 1856, 1857, 1858, 1860, 1862, and 1865 there was a Peace Preservation Act. In 1866 there was suspension of habeas corpus. In 1867 and in 1869 habeas corpus was again suspended. In 1870 there was a reversion to the Peace Preservation Act and in 1873 and 1875 similar Acts were passed. In 1881 there was suspension of habeas corpus. In 1882 there was a further Act for the prevention of crime. In 1883 there was a Peace Preservation Act and in 1887 there was a consolidation of all these previous Acts, commonly known as the Perpetual Coercion Act. These, however, were not enough. They started it again about 1900 for a while. Then they started with D.O.R.A. during the war and, when this Government came along after the Treaty, we had a succession of Treason Acts, Public Safety Acts, and so on. Recently there was published a Summary of the Statute Law of the Irish Free State and the various laws are put under sections in it. Anybody who is interested in continuing the series of Acts which I have just read can take up that book by Mr. Justice Hanna and will find from page 37 to page 46 the series of Public Safety Acts that have been passed by this Executive since they came into existence. If you compare the space given to these Public Safety Act; you will find that it is greater even than that devoted to the changes in the Constitution. What is the use of all this? Is it going to get the country anywhere? What is prompting this succession of Acts of this particular kind? The Executive will tell us that we must protect the jurors. The ordinary law is sufficient to protect them and there ought to be no need whatever for this extraordinary legislation. Every British Minister, introducing every one of those Acts that I have read out, made a speech exactly similar to that made this evening by the Minister for Justice. The same reasons were given for them. The Unionists of that period —some of them, anyway—felt, I am sure, that there was the very same justification for them as some members on the Government benches apparently feel now there is for this measure. I got a sample of these speeches in order that the House might realise the tradition that we are continuing. At the first reading of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 1887, Mr. A.J. Balfour on the 27th March of that year, having quoted from the charges of the judges of the assize courts continued:—

"... That shows the condition of that part of the West of Ireland —about, as I have said, one-third of all Ireland, and about one-half of that country exclusive of Ulster. Those charges exhibit the condition of public order in these districts. Now, what is the power of the law to meet that state of things? The Hon. Member for East Mayo (John Dillon), the other day—when he was attacking me—said, what was the use of adding battalion of police to battalion, and raising the Estimates for the Constabulary Forces year after year; and I replied to him that it was in vain to raise the Force if the Courts of Law were incapable of fulfilling their elementary official functions. This is the evil which we have specially to meet. It is this existing paralysis of the Courts of Law which we have specially got to meet. Whence this paralysis of the Courts of Law? The first answer I have to give is that evidence to convict is not forthcoming. ... In the counties I have just enumerated the number of offences reported since the previous Assizes amounted to 755. The number of cases for which there was no clue to the offenders was 536.... The number of cases in which the injured person declined to swear any information was 422. So terrified were they by the system of intimidation which prevails in those counties that they dare not come forward to give evidence against those who outraged and ill-treated them.... I have stated to the House one of the causes of the paralysis of the law. Another cause is that when they did come forward the juries, in the face of the clearest evidence, declined altogether to convict.... Is there any man in the least acquainted with Ireland who is not aware that, if a case involving Party considerations comes before a jury, and if you know before hand the political complexion of the men who compose that jury, you can tell beforehand not only what the jury will do, but how they will be divided in their verdict? ... I heard the other day of jurors in a respectable position who had begged of an officer whose duty it was to order some jurors to stand by, that he would include them in the jurors to be asked to stand by. The officer refused, but said if they did not come up to be balloted for he would not fine them. They said that they did not dare to take advantage of the privilege, because they had been canvassed and they must appear.... They were unwilling to violate their oaths; yet they could not free themselves from the tyranny which oppressed them. Is this to be wondered at when we see the Press of Ireland— at least the organs of the Hon. Member for Cork-publishing the names of jurymen who have given verdicts one way, and holding them up to public reprobation? ...Our Bill is a Bill, not for putting down agitation, but for enforcing the law. The law which we wish to enforce is not the law specially or particularly which regulates the relations between landlord and tenant. The law we seek to enforce is the law which gives in this country and every civilised country security to private individuals. It is the law which prevents your pocket being picked and your head broken; it is the law which enables you to go home with some security that midnight marauders will not invade your house, fire into your dwelling, possibly shoot you, possibly drag your wives and daughters out of bed.... Many of us who are most devoted in the cause of liberty pay but a cold and frigid respect to the cause of order. I will not ask whether, under some circumstances, these two great principles are or are not ever opposed; but I will say, and say boldly, that in this case they are united, and that if I appeal to one rather than to the other, it is in the cause of liberty that I ask this House to support us in breaking the yoke under which so large a part of Ireland is now groaning."

That is Mr. Balfour's speech. He was speaking for men who were at least as much cut off from the conditions which he was asking this law to be made to deal with as some members on the opposite benches are from the conditions and the people they are asking us to pass this law to deal with.

Where was he speaking?

He was speaking in the British House of Commons.

Aye. And the gentlemen to whom he was speaking would say at that time as some of their lineal descendants are saying to-day: "Oh! Ireland is not merely a partner in the British Empire, but Ireland is with Great Britain at the head of the British Empire. They get all the liberties of the British Empire."

Would the Deputy believe they were right in saying that. Are we to accept it that he is in favour of their right to say that?

No. My speech was to show that there are in Ireland men who still deny the right of England to pretend, even though agents——

Surely that is irrelevant?

The Deputy is talking in mathematics.

It is not irrelevant.

When the Deputy says the Government of this country is the British Government ——

I am saying that there is an evil continuity in this which I hope, if this is an Irish House, it will end. That is the purpose for which I am reading this. I want the members on the opposite benches, who are the majority, clearly to realise that there were men on a former occasion who invoked the name of law and order in order to crush the manifestations of national spirit in a national Ireland.

Does the Deputy realise that the men on the opposite benches represent a majority of the people and does he realise what that means?

I do realise it and perfectly realise it.

Will he acquiesce in it?

I think North Dublin nearly gave you your answer.

They are behind a wall of glass.

A wall of glass. Other people have a wall of prejudice which at present is blinding them to the most obvious facts. They are turning their backs on what they were doing, and what they did a few years ago.

No, but on what you are reading from—the British House of Commons.

And because they turned their backs on what they stood for a few years ago they will not allow their prejudice to let them know that there are a few men who did not turn their backs on these principles, and who are struggling, rightly or wrongly, either supported by the majority of the people of Ireland or not supported, to secure this objective.

Have the majority no rights?

The Deputy ought to allow Deputy de Valera to continue his speech.

Give him an opportunity of making a speech himself. He rarely speaks.

As I said, I am reading these speeches mainly in the hope that the wall of prejudice with regard to it will be broken down, that the people on the opposite benches will seriously consider the situation from the national viewpoint and not from the narrow, party viewpoint, which is the viewpoint that has obtained up to the present. I am reading these speeches because at that time those who stood for law and order, as it was called, and, in fact, all those powers of law and order against the Irish people, claimed that Ireland was represented in the British House of Commons, that any Irish representatives could go over there, that they were full partners, not merely partners in the sense of being dominions, but that they were at the head of the British Empire and controlled it. The Irish people did not believe that. That was not their view. They were forced into that partnership in 1800. To keep them in that partnership a series of Coercion Acts were passed.

Are they forced into anything now?

They have been.

They were forced into it when Mr. Lloyd George made use of the threat of immediate and terrible war.

That has nothing to do with the Bill.

It is a definite answer to a question that was put to me.

I want to make it clear that Deputy de Valera should have an opportunity of making his speech without further interruptions.

If he is asked a question is he not entitled to answer it?

I only want the Deputy to get "back to his muttons."

Apparently there are a few members of the House whose consciences are beginning to be pricked just a little. I am glad to note that such men have consciences left. As I said, I read that long list of Coercion Acts because I wanted to point out what caused them, and I wanted to point out that they succeeded very badly in their purpose. I have not appealed to the members on our benches, and I believe I have not to appeal to a number of members on the Labour Benches, but I am appealing to the members on the benches opposite to try to realise for a moment the road on which they are travelling and to ask themselves whether there is any better way for dealing with the present situation than by a succession of Coercion Acts. We cannot see that position properly unless we see it in its surroundings, and if I am asked whether the Irish people are being forced now, I point very relevantly to the speeches that were made in the Dáil when the Dáil was asked to accept the Treaty. I ask any member who doubts it to go back to the Republican Dáil Reports of 1921 and read them. See the reasons that were given by those who urged that the Treaty should be accepted and show me more than one or two which do not clearly point out that the Treaty was being accepted because the alternative was war, because Mr. Lloyd George threatened immediate and terrible war.

On a point of order, are we going to discuss the Treaty? If we are I am prepared to discuss it, but are we discussing this Bill?

That has nothing whatever to do with this Bill?

This is the Second Reading of this Bill. We have a right to examine the principles of the Bill, and where those principles are leading us. I have said these principles are going to deprive us of the ordinary safeguards of liberty which are in the jury system and the right that nobody should be deprived of his liberty unless for cause shown and in due process of law. This particular device, this Bill, is not new. Particularly I have shown it to have been used in the last century, and why? Why was it necessary? Why were these devices necessary? They were necessary because the law was out of sympathy with the people, because the laws did not correspond with the aspirations of the people, because the Act of Union was forced upon the Irish people, and because the Government that was governing Ireland was governing it against the will of the people of Ireland.

Is that happening now?

Would you keep the nursery in order?

If the Deputy wants me to deal at length with that situation, I am prepared to do it if the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is prepared to let it go.

To come down to a later period, there are only a few members, probably, who had immediate acquaintance with Mr. Balfour's régime. There are a few of them in the House, but I will go on to later times.

Mr. T. Sheehy

I fought him in his day.

Now let me come down from 1887 to 1920. On August 5th, 1920, speaking on the Second Reading of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Bill, Sir Hamar Greenwood said:

"May I say that this Bill was in draft in June last, but at my request the Cabinet held it back, because I wished to see how the Assize Courts would function in the month of July.... Unfortunately these courts were unable to function in many cases because of the failure—this is one of the prime reasons for the introduction of the Bill—of the jurors, both for grand juries and common juries, to answer their summonses and to appear in the Court before the judge to do their duty. Therefore trial by jury in those parts of Ireland to which I refer has broken down. ... Many prisoners and accused persons were in custody to be tried, but the jurors, owing to intimidation, failed to appear.... It is a new position—one that no one deplores more than I do"— like the Minister for Justice-"in the British Empire, where, I believe, never before have jurors failed to answer their summonses and do their duty to their fellow-countrymen. ... On the point of those already awaiting trial, may I say that under the head of ‘political crime and outrage'— the word ‘political' here has a curious Irish significance. ... Political crime in Ireland is wrongly, but commonly, called crime in the pursuit of some political end. It involves murder and a number of other offences. Under the head of this alleged political crime, at the end of July last there were in prison 47 convicted prisoners and 76 prisoners awaiting trial. Many of these 76 prisoners are now awaiting trial because of the break-down of the jury system. ...The reason for this Bill is that a state of disorder prevails over the greater part of Ireland, paralysing the machinery for the administration of justice, the punishment of crime and the enforcement of public duties. Criminals are protected from arrest, witnesses and jurors are terrorised, local authorities and their officers are encouraged or coerced to repudiate their statutory obligations and duties, all being done in the furtherance of a deliberate plan to bring about a new system of government in Ireland by revolutionary means. As a result, as I have tried to show by illustration, the ordinary law of the land is in abeyance in a certain part of Ireland. I submit that it is now the paramount duty of the Government to devise and to put into execution effective measures for the protection of life and property and the primary rights of citizenship.... I must repeat that it is a profound regret to me to have to introduce a Bill of this kind, but I consider it a paramount duty of the Government to meet the reign of terror that now afflicts Ireland. The Irish question is a question for Ireland, for the United Kingdom, for the Empire— if you like, for the English-speaking world. But murders, assassinations, intimidations, are questions which involve the whole fabric of civilisation. In this matter I submit that this House is the custodian of civilisation, and that this Bill will help us to break the Terror and to bring to justice the Terrorists."

Mr. Asquith: "...As I listened to him (Sir H. Greenwood) my memory was carried back some thirty years. In the first Session in which I sat in this House I heard from that bench and box opposite a very similar speech from the then Chief Secretary for Ireland. Jurors in these days could not be got...."

That was the atmosphere in these days. All these Coercion Acts did not effect very much. They failed, because, as I have said already, the law did not correspond with the aspirations of the people, and the jurors felt that they were the guardians of the rights of the people. They felt that they had a duty above, and supremely above, being mere instruments in carrying out British law. If the British statesmen of these days cared to see, they could have seen that their law and the aspirations of the people were not in accord, and if jurors to-day will not bring in verdicts to suit the Executive the lesson the Executive ought to learn from it is not that citizenship in Ireland is at a low ebb but that there is grave need for bringing the law and the aspirations of the people as a whole into accord. What I am asking the House to do is to reject this Bill, because there is a way—coercion will never succeed in doing more than that particular way—and that is to give the people of this country an opportunity of accepting an Irish Assembly as a legitimate assembly for making the laws of this country.

Have they not that opportunity?

They have not. The people you are devising this law against particularly are people who have been excluded from representation.

How many of them?

You do not know? You are afraid to give them an opportunity of showing what their numbers are. Before 1918 you had a law which prevented anybody going up for election unless he was prepared to go into the British House of Commons. If they got them in there then the British would boast that they had all the representatives of the people.

I am afraid the Deputy is wandering from the Bill.

I am only wandering to the extent that I am asked to wander.

Does the Deputy accept the House?

I have explained many a time what my attitude towards the House is, but it does not matter what my attitude towards the House is. This Bill is not directly intended to deal with those of us who are here or the section of the people who are represented here. This section in this particular Bill is designed to give unfair treatment to citizens who are not represented here. You have not given them an opportunity of being represented. You compel them to take an oath which they regard as one which they could not in conscience take.

An empty formula.

I say get rid of these tests.

Surely the Deputy is wandering.

I submit the Deputy is not wandering. I am speaking against the principle of this Bill.

I have given the Deputy great liberty on the Bill. I have given the Deputy as much liberty as he was entitled to get. I suggest that the question of a test oath surely does not arise.

Surely it does.

In the opinion of the Chair it does not.

May I submit that in being given the liberty I am entitled to, I got no favour. I am not asking any favour of the Chair or the House—I am simply standing on my rights in objecting to this Bill on the principle of trying to do the thing in the wrong way. I have shown the wrong way that has been persisted in by those who were blinded by prejudice, as some members opposite have now blinded themselves by prejudice, and who will not see that there are people in this country who are going to work until they are dead in order to secure the liberty of the country, and who are not going to take any oaths or make any submissions which would seem to deprive them of their right of working for these ends. There is a difficulty in this particular matter. That difficulty arose immediately the Treaty was accepted by a majority. The method that has been tried up to the present has been force. Force succeeded to a certain extent with the British. Each particular year they said: "Ireland at last is pacified," and each succeeding year, after having said that, they had to bring in some Coercion Act.

The President recently gave an interview and told us how well everything is going with the Free State. If everything is going well with the Free State, why then do we need this abrogation of the ordinary law?—for that is what it amounts to? If the State is so secure, and everything is so well with us, why do we want this abrogation of the ordinary law? The President, when it suited him, at the time of the election, used these two particular cases that are made the basis of this Bill, for political purposes, in a manner that was most disgraceful.

He got his answer.

Like Sir Hamar Greenwood, he kept them back for a time. He then made the speech, which of course, gave their chance to all those who are ready at all times to defame this people. We had a gentleman here as a reporter—Mr. C.J. Ketchem—who wrote an article for the "Daily Express" which was published far and wide. These are the headlines: "New Campaign of Terrorism in Southern Ireland"; "Gunmen's War on Citizens"; "Grey-haired Widow as Chief of the Gang"; "Jurymen Shot"; "Secret Meetings in a Dublin Garret." That resulted from the speech of the President when he wanted to make a speech for political purposes. Then when that was cabled over to America and he found that this particular slander on our people as a whole was being used in a way that might inconvenience himself and the Executive Council, he cabled out hastily a denial. What is this Bill for? If there is not a situation like this, why is it necessary at present to abrogate the ordinary law? The ordinary law does provide for such matters as intimidation and the rest.

If the ordinary law is not sufficient, and if there are symptoms which indicate there is something wrong, why will the Executive not go and look for the seat of the disease and not be trying surface cures for the symptoms. That is what the British did. That is why I read this Act as indicating how the British tried to deal with the same kind of thing. If the present Executive have the support of the people, then they ought to be able to possess their souls in patience for a little, and wait until such time as that will expresses itself in support of the law which they made. If they have not support for the law which they have made, then it is because the law is somehow out of accord with the aspirations of the people and their duty ought to be to set it right. Deputies on the top benches have protested and said: "This is an Irish House; this is not Great Britain." Very good; make it a completely Irish House by not compelling representatives of Irishmen who do not want to swear an oath of allegiance to a British king to do so. Make it an Irish House by removing the oath; make it possible for Irishmen who do not want to appear to compromise themselves or their national opinions to be represented here. Then the law that will be made here will not be looked upon as partisan law. Then you will not have any of these Coercion Acts.

Will the oath of allegiance in Document No. 2 do?

There never was an oath of allegiance in Document No. 2. If Deputy Hennessy would talk about something he knows about, he would be better off. I am not talking to Deputies like Deputy Hennessy, but to men who were in these particular things and know what they are talking about. I am not talking to the fifteen who are against Irish, I am talking to those who showed they were national, and appealing to them to be fair to themselves, to let their national feelings give them some sort of direction, and to let their hearts speak.

made a remark.

Will you send Deputy O'Sullivan back to the Spring Show as an exhibit?

This is the first Coercion Act that we have definitely had an opportunity of speaking upon in this House. As far as we are concerned, any step that is outside the ordinary law is going to be opposed by us. We are going to give no assistance whatever to the Executive to use measures that are outside the ordinary law.

I rise to a point of order. Deputy de Valera is after stating that he has no sympathy whatever with murderers. This Bill is to put them down. Now he stands up and says that it is not going to be law at all.

I would point out to Deputy Sheehy that if he goes back in memory he will find that every Irish representative who stood for Ireland's rights when they were being threatened in the British House of Commons was told by British Ministers that it was only to put down murder these Acts were passed. That is no answer. Deputy Sheehy has only to go back and think of the time when these answers were flung across the British House of Commons by English Ministers at men like the late John Dillon and others who were fighting for Ireland's cause then.

Mr. Sheehy

How are we going to battle with the position unless we have a Bill like this? You say, "We do not acknowledge this House." We do acknowledge this House, and the overwhelming majority of the Irish people do. It is in this House that we will have to protect the lives of the people and not by looking across the other side. We have no more to say now to John Bull or England. You have been carrying us across the Irish Sea all the day.

I knew there was a chord in some of these old warriors' hearts that could be stirred. I am perfectly certain that if Deputy Sheehy will get a volume in the library containing some of the Debates at that time he will find the very self-same thing that he is talking about here as a justification for this Bill given by British Tories, and by British Liberals too, as a justification for their Bill.

Mr. Sheehy

Will the Deputy realise that we have no more to say to England, that we are here in our own country administering our own laws, that we are a thoroughly independent nation under the Treaty and that we accept it?

If that were only so, then it should not be too difficult to get every section of the people to understand it.

Mr. Sheehy

I hope you will come along and shake hands.

All sections of the people would readily understand it, and it would not be necessary to have a process of packing juries in order to try to get fair trial, such as the Executive pretends is necessary, or, at least, to get trial that will bring conviction against people.

Mr. Sheehy

It is not—(interruptions and cries of order)—anything personal I am alluding to. It is on public grounds I am talking here.

Deputy Sheehy will have to restrain himself and let Deputy de Valera proceed with his speech.

If you pass Bills of this kind, you will get the sort of publicity for this country that you get from these gentlemen I have mentioned. It was the very self-same publicity which we got from them in the "Weekly Summary" which Sir Hamar Greenwood broadcasted throughout the world. Just listen to it for a moment. This is a despatch dated "Dublin, Friday," and appeared in the "Daily Express" of Saturday, April 6th.

Whose despatch?

By a gentleman named Ketchem—

"Not since those bleak, grey days in 1922, when I stood in the Bedford Tower of Dublin Castle and gazed on the burning ruins of the Four Courts, laid waste by the fleeing Republicans, have I known the public mind of Southern Ireland to be stirred to such a pitch of nervous tension. There is a grim anxiety in the air, an atmosphere of hush, of dark, mysterious forebodings, strangly reminiscent in a relative way of the rainy nights of those long winter months when, as I so well remember, the curfew sent the populace scurrying to their homes at five o'clock, and when every man in the streets after that hour carried a loaded revolver in his pocket. The only difference to-day in the feeling of the people is that their fears are not based on any apprehension of danger of a national character. There is, of course, no reason for that. But there is the gravest concern—and indeed every cause for it—for the safety of hundreds of individual citizens, who, on one account or another, have incurred the disfavour of a dangerous band of political desperadoes which has recently sprung into existence."

Would the Deputy explain what the writings of that gentleman have to do with this Bill?

On a point of order——

Let the Deputy go back to the Show.

I want to hear Deputy de Valera.

On a point of order, I desire to say that the opinion of that gentleman who wrote what the Deputy has read out in some paper or another has got absolutely nothing to do with the Bill entitled "An Act to Make Further and Better Provision for the Protection of Jurors and Witnesses concerned in the trial of criminal issues."

I think An Leas-Cheann Comhairle was asking me a question.

I was asking what relation there is between this gentleman's article and this Bill.

The relation is this: one of the reasons for introducing this Bill is that two crimes were committed. These crimes were known to the Executive for a number of weeks. They did not take any special action; they did not make any public pronouncement upon them until it suited their purpose at election time. Then the statement was made by the President of the Executive Council—I hold for election purposes. I shall read it if the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is doubtful whether it is or is not relevant to this Bill.

I shall allow the Deputy to quote what the President said, but I do not think I can allow him to quote comments by every newspaper on the state of the country.

The reason I want to read this is to show how the country is being misrepresented by people who take advantage of irresponsible statements made absolutely for political purposes at the time. These irresponsible statements are now going to be backed up by a Bill that will give another opportunity to Mr. Ketchem to write other articles of this kind. The President's statement was this—lest anybody would accuse me of not giving the context I shall give it in full:—

"Some of the speakers have told you of the difficulties which confronted the Government in its early stages. One of the problems was: by what means we should have prisoners tried in the courts; whether a judge would decide a man's guilt or innocence. Laws were never popular; from the earliest time laws were broken. Nowadays they have people complaining that the laws were onerous, difficult, and so on. We established in this country the right of trial by jury; that is a precious right; it is not the prerogative of any Party in this country."

Deputies

Hear, hear!

I hope Deputies who say "Hear hear!" will see that this right is preserved and not polluted.

Let you do the same thing.

Juries can be protected by the ordinary law.

Are you going to help to do that?

It is no protection to the juries to take away all reason for helping them.

made a remark.

That is one of the ways of protecting them. It is one of the very best ways to protect them, because the day that you will have a House where all the people of the country are represented, where there will be no barriers to any representative of the people coming in. from that day there will be some hope that the laws made in that assembly will be regarded as the laws of Ireland and obeyed by the people of Ireland as such.

On a point of order, I do not agree with Deputy de Valera as a rule, but I ask the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to rule that Deputy de Valera should be allowed to make his speech without any further interruption.

The speech made by the President in this particular matter is, of course, not relevant. When these things hurt, some of the Deputies try to prevent anybody from speaking. " We established," the President says, "in this country the right of trial by jury; that is a precious right; it is not the prerogative of any Party in this country; it should be the proudest possession of all parties and every party in the State." And that got applause, as it is getting "Hear, hear!" from some of the Deputies. Very well, if that is the principle that you accept, will you see it is kept pure and right and not destroy it, as the Minister for Justice proposes to destroy it in this Bill. If there is anything to boast about in establishing the right of juries then preserve the right.

We will preserve them all right.

That is what we are doing.

The meaning of this Bill, and it has no other meaning, is completely to destroy the value of trial by jury. "We have established the independence of the judiciary"; that used to be the boast of the British too. "Every person is tried in open court." Every person is tried in open court. Why do not the Deputies opposite shout "Hear, hear" to that? This is the President's statement too.

Read it again.

"We have established the independence of the judiciary."

Hear, hear!

"Every person is tried in open court."

Hear, hear!

And will be tried, I hope, in open court. I hope Deputy Gorey will, at any rate, be against this Bill. "On the security of the jury rests the liberty of the people. On the impartiality of the jury rests the security of the citizens."

Hear, hear!

Very well, then will Deputy Gorey see that the accused will always have an opportunity of an impartial jury, not one packed by his political opponents, by the Executive. "A matter of very serious import has arisen within the last two months. A deliberate and organised attack has been launched against the foundations of ordered society in the City." Now, Mr. Ketchem, get ready. "In January a murderous attack was made on a respectable citizen, and that it had not fatal results was due to the dispensation of Providence. The attempt to murder this citizen was made for one reason only, because he had served on a jury which convicted a criminal against whom there was the most complete and convincing evidence of guilt. Less than a fortnight ago, a young man was brutally done to death in this City because he gave evidence for the prosecution in a recent case. Mark for the moment what the situation is. Are you to have proper government; are you to have government at all? If you are to have government, then you must have law, and if you are to have law you must have the instruments of law. First you must have the means of finding whether the person charged with an offence is guilty or not. You must have free ingress and egress from the courts of persons about to give or who have given evidence. These two incidents are not isolated incidents. They are part of a deliberate conspiracy to defeat the interests of justice." The Minister for Justice has not given us any indication of this widespread conspiracy. He has not shown it to us. "Some time ago, a series of pamphlets threatened jurors that if they did their duty to the State or to the public they would be shot. These failed in their object. The decent citizens of Dublin were not terrorised. Embracery was not successful."

If they were not successful, why is it that we have to go to the extent of completely undermining the whole jury system in order to meet the situation. "So far the perpetrators of these crimes have succeeded in evading capture. The position, therefore, is that there exists in this city at the present moment a body of criminals who are endeavouring to secure immunity from conviction by murdering unarmed witnesses and jurors who are merely doing their duty as citizens. It this conspiracy is not crushed—" notice what the President was anxious about. It was good for the election. It was not for the protection of the jurors but to crush a conspiracy. That is to give colour for all the raids and all the imprisonments without any charge. It was to give colour to the taking of men and to enable men to be taken out into the fields at midnight and to be threatened with guns and to have all that done in secret. The Executive seem to be very anxious that their acts should not see the light of day and be subject to the ordinary criticism of informed public opinion. They want to do all their raiding and so on in the dark so that nobody will hear about it. "If this conspiracy is not crushed and crushed quickly we shall be faced with a very serious problem. Those who value human life so lightly cannot be expected to respect property or the rules of ordered society. The whole social fabric is threatened by their existence. You will remember that seven years ago there was a very determined attack made on the social order of this country; murder, armed robbery and arson were rife, private houses, banks and business houses were robbed, looted and burned. It appeared an almost impossible task to put an end to this state of affairs. There were so many opportunities for the criminals and the forces at the disposal of the Government were new and inexperienced. But notwithstanding all these difficulties the attempt was made and the Government put it down"—the present Government put it down. "The standard bearer of the Government in this election is Dr. O'Higgins. The present conspiracy must be put down in the interests of society, in the interests of civilisation, in the interests of the safeguarding of human life and the protection of property." As I said you can get parallels for all these in the statements of the British Tories and Liberals when they were bringing in their Coercion Acts.

The postal voters saved the situation.

Read something from Chicago.

"The present conspiracy must be put down in the interests of society, in the interests of civilisation, in the interest of safeguarding human life and the protection of property. This is not a remote issue for the electors of North Dublin. Wild women and hysterical men,"—now we have Ketchem—"are preaching murder in the city, men and women are supplying arms to boys to kill at an age when they should be still at school. We know that is going on and an end must be put to it and that quickly." It is some time since that was delivered. The Government has not done anything extraordinary since and yet Dublin still stands, and Dublin would have stood if these speeches had not been made. The whole purpose of the speeches was, of course, to make the electors nervous and let them feel that there was a dangerous situation and of course the strong men on the opposite benches were the only possible safeguards of society. "Wild women and hysterical men are preaching murder in the city. Men and women are supplying arms to boys to kill at an age when they should be still at school. We know that that is going on and an end must be put to it and that quickly. This type of crime receives encouragement from every form of disrespect for authority, whether under a constitutional cloak or expressed in open defiance of State institutions. It is the fundamental duty of the State to protect the citizen's life and property"—aye, and to protect the citizens' liberty——

Hear, hear!

—— and thereby give him an opportunity of a fair trial when he is accused. "It is the fundamental duty of the State to take the steps necessary and adequate for that, and the Government intends to take whatever steps are necessary." Strong men, of course, once more. "If from every platform they had speakers standing for the safeguarding of jurors for the security of life of every man who acted on a jury, they would not have those incidents that happened recently."

And if they had a Government and an Executive that would see the signs of the times and ask themselves the question that Irish representatives used to warn the British, to ask themselves whether the law is in consonance with the aspirations of the people, whether the people feel a natural respect for it as law made by their representatives. they would have done very much better. This was the statement that began this campaign, and the next step to Mr. Ketchem was not very far. I think I could easily, if I wished, press the point, but you can see there was relevance in that particular document. However, the point that I wish to make upon that is, that this is a very serious matter. This is a question of destroying what used to be called the palladium of liberty. The Minister for Justice is trying to steal that away from the citizens as a whole. Each Deputy here has a duty to see that that right of fair, impartial trial in open court is not denied to the people and that it will not be in the power of the Executive by Section 8 of this Bill to keep without trial a man whom they wish to detain in prison. Coercion and coercive Acts of this kind have always failed in the past. They will fail in the future. They are as hopeless to deal with the real situation as were the methods of a doctor who would be dealing with surface symptoms instead of dealing with the seat of the disease. If juries do not ordinarily find judgment in accordance with what people would regard as facts—they do not do that out of perversity. They do it because they feel that they are acting fundamentally more justly than if they did. Most of us know that there was a time in Britain when the law was so severe—I see the Minister for Justice taking notes. He can print them if he wants to.

I like the Deputy's eulogy of perjury.

The Deputy did not eulogise perjury.

The Deputy is doing it now.

I am doing nothing of the kind. I say that a man has in conscience a fundamental duty not to be an instrument of a corrupt and tyrannical power; juries in England, when the law was so severe and so unjust as to deprive men of their lives for what to-day would be regarded as petty theft, set themselves against it and did not bring in convictions; and it was by the juries setting themselves against this law and not bringing in convictions that the right remedy was got. The law was changed.

They never shot them in the backs in England.

I do not know what was done in England. When British Ministers were making a case against Ireland and crime in Ireland, it could be shown there was far greater crime in their own country. I do not know what was done in England, but I know that in any country there are people who will say they will not become instruments, through forms of legality, for a corrupt power—an instrument of tyranny. The proper attitude for such jurors would be to refuse and to face the penalties for refusing to go on these juries. In any case, it was the resistance of the juries to an unjust law that brought about the change of law in England, and the people were wise enough to see that juries did not bring in verdicts in accordance with what appeared to be the facts, because they knew it meant a punishment altogether out of proportion to the nature of the crime. It was because men saw the import of that, that the law was changed. It would be well if you had men on the Executive here who would ask themselves: What is the import of all this? What does it mean and why does it happen? Is it there is some perversity in us as a people, as our opponents in the past used to try to have us believe? Is there something in that, or is it the natural explanation that when juries do not find in accordance with what others regard to be the facts, they shrink from having punishment imposed by a law which they think unjust?

If the Minister wants to make sure there will be no such thing as perjury, then the way to do it is to make it appear to the conscience of every individual going to serve on a jury that he has a duty to the community by giving his verdict in accordance with the facts. It should be made clear to him that he has a duty to the community and to the individual. You will not do it by a Bill of this kind. Quite the contrary. Everybody knows the experience of juries. When there was an impartial judge the juries found in accordance with the facts as a rule, but when there was a judge known to be bigoted and who was known by his actions not to be impartial, the experience was that the juries did not find in accordance with the facts.

As to the question of unanimity of the jury, in Scotland, when they were bringing back the jury system to civil cases, it was predicted that unanimity was impossible and that it was a wrong system. What was the result? Twenty years of practice have convinced those who were opposed to it at the time that it has been satisfactory. Those who originally opposed it are now convinced that it was a good system. One of its principal opponents, one of the judges at the time, said afterwards that in twenty years' experience of it he knew only one case where there was disagreement. If there is not unanimity of agreement in the first case, the Executive has a remedy. If there is disagreement they send the prisoner back for trial. That is a remedy in favour of the Executive. It is suggested it would be fairer to the accused if unanimity were not demanded. I think the accused will feel that they have a better safeguard in unanimity than in the system proposed by the Minister for Justice. The State has a safeguard by putting them up for trial again. The innocent person has a safeguard in the fact that he believes the subsequent jury may possibly find in accordance with the facts.

This system of empanelling in secret—let us be straight about it— this mean method of packing a jury which can be used by any unscrupulous Executive—and we ought not to give any Executive, scrupulous or unscrupulous, the opportunity of packing the jury—will not be popular. We are opposed to this Bill because it gives power to the Executive to pack the jury. It does not give the accused any opportunity of effectively challenging members of the jury who may be biased against him. He does not know who they are or their antecedents. He does not know whether they are likely to give a partial verdict against him. He has no redress whatever. Then you have this other way—keeping accused persons for months without bringing them for trial properly. All the Executive have to do is to get their agents to suggest that there has been intimidation. We know in the past that agents of the Government have been found who will give false testimony. It is not new to hear of Sergeant Sheridans, and so on. They have been there, and we know it. Are we to put it in the power of policemen, if they are so minded, to swear falsely that there has been intimidation and get the judge to put off the trial for another period? When the case comes along again this procedure will be repeated. There have been mean Coercion Acts in the past, and brutal Coercion Acts in the past. They have been put forward mainly, except for the last four or five years, by men who did not understand this country or the aspirations of the people.

Now they are proposed to be done by an Executive that calls itself Irish and by a House that pretends to call itself Irish and which is composed of Irish representatives who in the past have been fighting for liberty but who are now going to give away those rights and hand them to the keeping of whom?—of an Executive of which the Minister for Justice is typical. The Minister for Justice, when he has evidence put before him in the way of sworn testimony which can be investigated, will not investigate it but will condone all the acts of his agents no matter of what brutality they are convicted. He lets them believe that they can act like the Cliffords, do just as they please, and the more they do against individual citizens the more they curry favour with the Executive. That is the Executive that is asking you to give it this power. I hope that there is some feeling in this House in regard to individual liberty and that there is no man here, who has the slightest conception of it or who knows what it meant in the past, who will give a vote for this measure. Protect your jurors by all means. If an unfortunate man has to act on a jury—I say "unfortunate" if his feelings are such that he believes the law to be unjust—he is put between the frying pan and the fire. On the one hand his conscience tells him that the law as a whole is unjust but, if he has a keen understanding and if his conscience is tender, he may say to himself: "my duty is not to make the law or to pass judgment whether the law is good or bad, but to find a verdict in accordance with the facts." There are other people who will not take that view, who will feel that the law is unjust and that they will be instruments of the tyranny of that law against their fellow citizens and they do not want to be placed in that position. I pity them and sympathise with them and I, for one, would not in any way whatever condone any attempt to interfere with those jurors. I pity such a man from my heart. The condition of that unfortunate individual is bad enough without having any other punishment meted out to him.

Therefore I am not to be taken as sympathising with attacks on or intimidation of jurors, but I say that anything to deal with that is not getting to the foundation of things, and will not remedy things eventually. You are only putting off the evil day. The people who passed the succession of Acts which I read out thought that at last they had finished the Irish question, and that they had stamped out anything like national sentiment among the people. You who are only of yesterday compared with those people who for a hundred years have tried it will also fail like them. You will have everyone in the community who has any sense of justice against you. You will not have the people in sympathy with this law. If you want to have law respected you will have to have the law the people can respect. You must have a House making laws which the people can regard as truly representative of the people. This House is the source of the law, but if it is foul at the top how can the law be respected? Every day in the newspapers we read about what Catholic Emancipation meant. What did it mean? At most, the biggest thing it meant for those who were prepared to send representatives to the House of Commons in England was the fact that the Catholic section of the people were going to get representation where the laws were going to be made. It was a big thing when you look at it in that way, but otherwise it was not. An Emancipation Act is needed now for that section of the people who are denied admission here to the place where the laws are made. You will get further with one Act of that kind than with all the miserable succession of Coercion Acts that have come down from the British since 1800.

This Bill has admittedly had its origin in two dastardly and cowardly crimes which were committed in this city in the last few months, and which were not in the ordinary sense of the word crimes, but which had a special significance. The fact that the perpetrators of these crimes have not so far been brought to justice creates a situation that has to be dealt with. Perhaps I should say the failure to bring them to justice despite our police machinery, our secret service, and every means at our disposal has created a situation which the Government for the time being say, and I say with them, is a situation that requires to be dealt with. The Government, however, does not proceed to deal with that particular situation which is being created, and with that alone. It sets out to do something else, and, in the words of the Minister for Justice, it proceeds to bring in a reform, as they call it, of the whole jury system. It sets out to make it suit the requirements of the present day. The Government believe that the time has come to consider what jury system is best suited to this country, and they proceed to bring in, not a measure to deal with the situation created by those crimes about which I spoke, but a reform of the whole system, a permanent measure.

The Bill is intended to be a permanent measure. That appears on the face of it and it has been definitely stated by the Minister. I submit that if it was the feeling of the Government that reform of the jury system was necessary, the time to bring in a reform of that kind, a permanent measure of that kind, was not immediately after a situation had been created which required special treatment. Apparently from listening to the Minister, one gathers that it is not the intention to deal with the new situation that has been created. An attempt, I can only call it an attempt, has been made to show that that is not the case, but it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get away from the fact that all the provisions of the measure are aimed at the particular conspiracy that has been spoken of here to-night. If there is anybody whom it is likely to affect in its actual operation, it is not that particular body at whom it is aimed.

I approach this matter from a totally different point of view to that of Deputy de Valera. I do not take the view that we have here an unscrupulous Government, an unscrupulous Executive, whose one aim and ambition it is to capture their political opponents and put them into prison. I do not want to look at it from that point of view. I prefer to look at it from a much broader point of view. I believe that the effect of this measure will be, not to go any great distance at all to meet the particular difficulty that the Government had in mind, that its effect will be to deprive the accused in all cases, not alone this particular type of case, but all cases, of every kind of protection which has been built up as the result of long experience and the recognition of the rights of citizens. This measure, as I say, is not to be confined to any particular type of case. It will apply to all kinds of criminal cases. It will apply, I speak subject to correction, to all cases, no matter what the penalty is, even though the penalty may be death. I think I am right in my interpretation of the Bill that a man may be condemned to death on a majority verdict. Is that a correct interpretation of the Bill?

A Deputy

By a majority of 9 to 3.

Mr. O'Connell

I submit that all these attempts to secure privacy for juries will in reality be useless, if it is to be accepted that the people who commit crimes of the kind mentioned cannot be discovered. All these precautions may seem to go some length to protect juries, but in reality they will not. I am almost certain that the measure of protection it will give to juries will not be very much; certainly it will not be worth the changing of the whole basis of the administration of justice. I agree that the one great thing about the administration of justice is that justice should be administered openly and above board to all. I do not see how you will create respect for the law and respect for the administration of justice by the proposals which are set out in this measure, how you will create respect for the verdicts given in a situation when it is open to any Superintendent of the Guards, as set out in one of the sections, merely to swear that he considers that it would be dangerous to have a case tried in open court and to take away entirely the discretion of the judge. The court must be cleared. It is open to the Superintendent of the Guards not only to clear the court of ordinary individuals but, in extreme cases, of the Press. He has only to swear that the Press representatives who are present are either representatives of papers which had been printing seditious articles or that the Pressmen had been seen in the company of suspicious persons or had been known to consort with suspicious persons.

There is no limitation on the discretion of the Guards' Superintendent. He can clear the Court on every occasion. The Minister may say that that is not likely to happen. Of course it may not be likely to happen but it is possible that it may happen. I have very great respect for the ordinary Guards. We may have all confidence in them but there is no necessity and it is unwise to make little gods of them and to put such power into their hands as is proposed by this measure. You proceed to number jurors, to have them called secretly but where is the measure of protection for them? It is only a question of degree. Unless you put them behind a screen they will be seen. They will be identified even by the prisoner himself but how far, I would like to ask, is it possible to carry out the intentions of the Act, if it is an Act for the protection of jurors? I would like to say a word on some of its clauses. I refer to the right to clear the court, the right to hold a court in secret. I am satisfied that that kind of thing will create the impression, whether the impression be justified or otherwise, that there is something secret in the administration of the law, something that it is necessary to hide, something that one cannot do in the light of day.

Possibly shooting at night.

I will deal with that in a moment. It does not purport to be special treatment for a special set of circumstances. It is a reform of the whole jury system; therefore, we have to look at it apart from the special circumstances out of which it grew. We have to look at it not only in relation to that particular set of circumstances but in relation to the whole administration of criminal law, in the case of ordinary crime as well as in the case of political crime.

There is one section here which deals with the recognition of the court. I have more than once expressed the view that every person has a right to hold whatever opinion he wishes and to express that opinion so long as he does it in a peaceful and orderly way. If I hold a view that a Free State, such as we have set up here, is not a form of Government that ought to be set up in this State I have the right to hold the view that the institutions set up under that form of government are not necessarily the kind I want, and I have the right to refuse to recognise them. I could never see why refusal to recognise the court ought to be treated as a crime. You cannot force opinions down my throat. You cannot make me hold opinions I do not want to hold. I can go into the court. I can sit silent there. If I do not recognise it you should not punish me. I cannot see where the crime is in the non-recognition of the court. There are regulations in every court enforcing respect for the court. You cannot go in and sing songs or treat the court with any other kind of disrespect. I can understand that measures must be framed to prevent that kind of thing. I can understand there are measures already in existence. Judges have power. I am no lawyer. I do not know whether a judge has power. I believe he has. I have seen people imprisoned or fined for contempt of court. The Minister is a lawyer and he will tell me whether it is necessary or not to bring in a special Act for the offence of treating the court contumaciously or disrespectfully or something of that kind.

So far as non-recognition of the court is concerned, I want the Minister to explain to me how that is a crime. A man has a right to his opinion and to say, "I believe there should be another form of Government in this country. I do not recognise your institutions." That is one thing. Of course, if he acts in disregard of the decision of the court, that is another matter, and there is a way of dealing with it. A publican might say that he does not recognise the Licensing Act. It should never be there. He does not believe in it. He breaks it. He is brought up, fined and punished for it. It does not matter whether he recognises it or not. He has to obey it. It is not criminal for him to say that he does not recognise it. I do not see that you are adding anything to your Bill by putting into it anything of this kind, or making it a criminal act. Look at the penalty that is attached to that. The effect of Section 6 is that there can be a series of sentences by the judge for non-recognition, so that he can go on six months after six months, if the person who takes up that attitude is still not recognising the court. I think the Minister must admit that that is a position it is not right to put a citizen into. The point we have to consider here is this. Is it proper that, as I have said, a special set of circumstances should be made a reason at this particular juncture for overhauling the whole jury system? I am of opinion that it is not. I think the Government have made a mistake in not dealing with the special set of circumstances that arose in a special way instead of bringing in a permanent measure which cannot, in the manner and the time of present ing it, be dissociated from this particular set of circumstances. I believe that the jury system has evolved as the result of long experience, and in regard to the matter of the verdict of nine members I think that whatever case might be made for applying that to civil actions——

It is the law in civil actions.

Mr. O'Connell

I know it is the law. Whatever justification might be made for its applying in civil actions, it seems to me that there is no justification when it is a question of depriving a man of his liberty and even of his life. It is not too much even to expect that a case should be so clear against a man that twelve ordinary citizens would be absolutely convinced of his guilt before he would be deprived either of his liberty or his life. What is the object now of making this change at this particular time? Will it not appear to the ordinary person that it is the intention of the Government to secure a verdict even though three men may be intimidated, may be afraid to act according to their oaths. Take an ordinary murder case, which has nothing whatever to do with this particular class of crime, which is founded entirely on circumstantial evidence, where there are three members of the jury who have very grave and honest doubts of the guilt of the man. I hold if that is so, if the case against this man is not so clear that twelve ordinary citizens are absolutely convinced of his guilt, the man should not be deprived of his, liberty or life because it is an old and well-known rule, accepted and often quoted, that it is better that ten criminals should go free than that one innocent man should be punished.

99 is the number.

Mr. O'Connell

That is stronger still in favour of my argument. If I take that point of view the Minister will ask me, and he will be justified in asking me: What would you do to meet the special set of circumstances? If it was proved clearly and definitely that the jury system failed to deal with any special class of crime I would be prepared to go the whole distance of doing away with the jury system altogether for that particular class of crime and for that particular class of crime only, rather than attempt to make the whole jury system fit in with the special set of circumstances that has arisen. I would be prepared, for instance, to set out definitely and clearly the particular classes of crime and leave it to the discretion of the Attorney-General to apply, in cases of that kind, to have them tried by, say, three judges of the High Court. Though I believe in the jury system, I know that there are many arguments put forward from time to time by jurists to the effect that trial by judge is even preferable to trial by jury. But whether it is, or is not, that would be my solution of the particular set of circumstances that has arisen.

With regard to this measure, I would be quite prepared to support the Second Reading if I felt that I could, by amendment of its clauses, make it do the thing which I believe the Government wants to do and at the same time protect what I believe ought to be protected, the traditions which have grown up out of the experience of courts and law makers for many years. I do not believe that it is possible to do that, but I put it to the Government that they are not wise in proceeding in this way, that it is not the best way in which to proceed. I do not want at all to take up the attitude that is taken up by Deputy de Valera here. If I may make one or two remarks on his statement, I think he is not doing a service to this country in attempting to carry on what he calls a chain of continuity. There is a very distinct step that must be marked, a very distinct difference that must be noted, from 1921 on. Whether these people are representing the Irish people or not is a matter for the Irish people to say. I did my best to prevent the people from putting them on these benches. Deputy de Valera did the same, but we failed, and let us recognise that it was the votes of the Irish people that put them there. If laws are made in this House they are made by the representatives of the majority of the people. It has often been said that this House does not represent the Irish people. But the Irish people, when they got a chance, said they did, and although we may go out and try to induce the people to do differently that is what they have done and we must recognise it. There has been a lot of talk here about manifestations of patriotism, the aspirations of the Irish people and the rights of the Irish people. What are the rights of the Irish people in this particular matter? Is it the right, for instance, to carry a gun in your hip pocket? I would like if Deputy de Valera or somebody from his Party would come down from the skies now and again. Let me put this question to him. If he or his front-bench men were on the other side and they found a criminal masquerading as a patriot, with a gun in his pocket, what would they do with him?

Invite him to tea!

Mr. O'Connell

I want to refer to this because that kind of speech that Deputy de Valera has made here is an encouragement to people to think that an admittedly small minority have the right to decide what the Irish people should do or should not do. While I admit and preach and will continue to preach that everyone has the right to hold his opinion and to induce others to adopt that opinion, I say very definitely that no man has the right to use violence to make me or anybody else adopt his particular opinion. If he does attempt to use violence to make me adopt his opinion then he should be made suffer for it. Of course, there are people who think that the end justifies the means. I am not a believer in that doctrine. There may be many things the Irish people do not want, but I know definitely one thing that they do want; they want to have done with this idea that if you set yourself up as a patriot or call yourself a patriot, you are at liberty to do anything you like. That is an impression we must get away from the minds of the people. If we do not we will be justifying a set of communists or anarchists who may think that the system of government or of society in this country is not such as it ought to be and that they would be justified in destroying it and in using every possible means, violence or otherwise, in doing so. I think there would be more respect for the law and more inclination on the part of all the people to accept the law if we in this House first recognised it, accepted it and respected it. I do not want to be taken as lecturing or preaching in any way, but I do feel that it would be in the interests of the country if we, in this House, accepted that view.

Somebody made the point that, of course, the present situation was accepted under threats. I maintain again that the people have the right to choose: to accept or to reject even under threats, and to say: "Well, in the circumstances we will accept," or "we will stand up to threats." I think that Deputy de Valera did not do a service to the case which he put up by the particular type of speech he made this evening. With regard to this measure, I put it again to the Government that they will be strengthened in dealing with the situation that has been created as a result of the action of a comparatively small—in fact, I would say, very small—number of people. They will be strengthened in dealing with that position if they set out to deal with it, and it alone. If they do that, I for one will be prepared to support them—if it is to deal with that particular matter—in very drastic steps indeed, but I am not prepared to allow that particular position to be made the reason for dealing with our whole system of administering the criminal law. In my opinion, and I say this very definitely, this is a retrogressive measure. I am satisfied that the measure, if it is carried into law in the form in which it stands now, will not lead to that respect for the law and to that co-operation in the carrying out of the law which all right-minded citizens are anxious to have.

In dealing with this Bill Deputy O'Connell said something that is true. He said that this Bill did not protect the juror, and I agree. If this Bill has a weakness— I think it has several weaknesses— this is one of them, that it does not protect the juror. It is true, of course, that the Bill will save the juror from intimidation and annoyance previous to serving on a jury, but after he has served on a jury it does not ensure him protection. I want Deputy O'Connell to realise that trial by jury is getting its last chance. Let us decide if we are going to preserve trial by jury. If we are not going to reach the position which the Deputy suggests, of having trial by three judges, then we must do something to preserve trial by jury, as well as liberty and freedom for those who serve on juries. I think that this Bill, if it be only taken as an indication of the mind of the Dáil, is valuable, and that it will go a long way to prove to the criminally-disposed and the cowardly curs that we have amongst us that the big majority in this Dáil is prepared to uphold the law, and the freedom and liberty of every citizen. As a gesture even, I think the Bill would be valuable—not because of anything that is inherent in the Bill, or any virtue that may be in any particular clause of it, but as an indication of the mind of the majority of the Dáil in the matter of preserving decency and respect for the law.

Deputy de Valera said that this Bill was a serious matter. So it is —a very serious matter. When Deputy de Valera said that this was an attack on liberty and an attack on the liberty of the citizen, I think he was paying no attention at all to the merits of the Bill. In his long speech of over two hours, 99 per cent. of what the Deputy said had nothing whatever to say to the Bill or to the merits of it. In dealing with matters that have a political tinge, trial by jury has been a matter of great concern to those responsible not alone for the civil but for the religious life of this State. I think it is not exaggerating the position to state that. That applies, I think, not only to civil cases but to criminal cases with a political tinge, and indeed one might say to almost every other kind of case. Perhaps in saying that I will be taken as one who is out to vilify his own people. But if I am to speak as one who has read pastorals or listened to the reading of pastorals——

Did you ever walk out?

I listened to the reading of these pastorals and I read public pronouncements from the heads of the Church to which I belong. I know that the heads of the Church to which I belong are very seriously concerned as to the oaths taken both by witnesses and jurymen. That cannot be denied, and if I am vilifying my countrymen by drawing attention to that, then I am vilifying them in good company. We know that these are matters that are occupying the heads of our civil and religious institutions in this country. We know by what a slender thread the whole question of trial by jury hangs. If we have these things in mind, and we all know that these are the actual facts, then I suggest that we should go a long way to try and preserve trial by jury and do all that we can to preserve jurymen from being intimidated and annoyed, even if we cannot ensure them protection afterwards. Deputy de Valera, in one of his sane moments in dealing with this Bill, talked about coercion. He said that this was a coercive measure and tried to connect it with other Bills passed in another Parliament. What is the Deputy's view of coercion? By implication he says that the little cowardly bully should be allowed to coerce the ordinary citizen into a frame of mind which would lead him to bring in a verdict altogether different to what his conscience tells him to be the true verdict. If there is coercion in this country at all in any form, it is by the cowardly, sneaking individual who wants to coerce the decent citizen. The one has to go into the open public court in the face of everyone, the other fellow can go around in the dark. He always selects the man who he knows is not armed. A thousand to one on; that is his chance. He is going to take no risks. He will take care to beware of the man who he believes is carrying a gun. He will fight shy of him. The first thing he enquires about is: what about the get away? Does he carry a gun? When he gets assurances on these points, then he proceeds to effect his plan.

That is the coercion that we are dealing with and the coercion that this Bill proposes to deal with. When approaching this or any other matter we ought to do so on the basis that the juryman or the witness is only a human being, and that he has as much regard for his skin as Deputy de Valera has, and has proved to have. He is only an ordinary human being, and he can be intimidated as well as anybody else. He wants to live in peace and not with the threat of the gun behind him when it comes to doing his duty as a citizen. He is only an ordinary human being, as Deputy de Valera himself ought to remember. He is a case in point himself of what respect he has for his own skin.

You never got yours damaged very much.

I went where it was going. I did not go in priest's clothes. I did not go in disguise.

You are hitting President Cosgrave very hard.

Deputy Gorey ran. That is the main thing.

Boiled down, Deputy de Valera's speech comes to this, that his idea of liberty and the protection of trial by jury is the right of giving every chance for the intimidation and murder of the ordinary jurors. I wonder why the Deputy should use the word "liberty" at all in connection with trials by jury when a clique can go around and intimidate? This Bill deals with a verdict by a majority. I do not know in how many countries to-day a unanimous verdict is required from a jury. There may be others who do know, but I do not. I would like to know in how many civilised countries a unanimous verdict is necessary, either on the capital charge or any other charge. Reference was made to political tinges and it was said that the introduction of the Bill had a political basis. If a Bill were introduced in the United States to deal with the position, say, in Chicago, could it be said that that would be a Bill for taking away the liberty of the citizen? Certainly it could not. Witnesses, jurors and lawyers connected with cases have been shot down in the streets of America. What we have here is only a small edition of that, but the mind, the will and the tendency is there and the thing must be tackled and done away with. I cannot visualise the position when the law courts would have to be cleared of the general public and of the reporters. Perhaps there is no necessity for that, and, in my opinion, there is not, because even if they were cleared out it would still be possible to know the composition of the jury. In the absence of having it a water-tight section, I do not see the necessity for the section at all.

This Bill, I think, is based on the principle that everybody has rights, that the prisoner has rights, the juror has rights, and the witness has rights. The Bill, in my opinion, goes a long way to protect these rights, and for that reason I think every decent-minded man in the State will support it. Deputy de Valera made a speech which lasted over two and a half hours, and it was the only speech that he could make on any subject. It hinged on the Treaty and on the events of 1921-22, but the speech had really no reference to the Bill. It may be said that it is unfortunate that the Bill was introduced at this time. The Bill was introduced to deal with a certain position, but at the same time we should be able to consider fairly every section on its merits. If there is anything wrong with a section it can be pointed out in the course of discussion and amended. Why should we not take away our minds from the particular circumstances of the Bill and deal with the sections on their merits? I do not agree with Deputy O'Connell that there is nothing in the Bill that we cannot dispose of on its merits. We are told that there are people in the country who are not recognising the courts because they have not the sanction of the whole people. Has any court in any country at any time had the sanction of all the people in the country? There are thirty or forty people who say the courts here have not their sanction. What was the result of the election? All these people in the country voted for one political party and there were not ten people who did not go to the polls outside the thirty or forty active individuals.

Prove that.

Does it need proving?

Resign your seat for Carlow-Kilkenny and we will see.

Everyone in Carlow-Kilkenny went to the poll.

Another couple of hundred would have finished you.

Quite right, but they went. There is no use in people saying all the people are not represented here. Everyone voted with the exception of thirty or forty, and the speech of Deputy de Valera was only paying back the debt he owes to those who rallied to him at the last election. The rank and file of this Party are supporting this Bill in order not to interfere with the liberty of the citizen but to preserve trial by jury, which is in a critical position. We do not want to go back, as Deputy O'Connell said, for any class of crime to trial by three judges, but we are giving a last chance to trial by jury and doing everything we can to protect jurors and witnesses. We make no apology for our support of this Bill. We need a stronger measure to protect trial by jury, and we are prepared to support it.

Deputy Gorey, in the course of his speech, contributed a little sense and a lot of nonsense to this discussion.

A lot of nonsense went before it.

I will give the Deputy full credit for the sense. There is one thing of which his speech convinced me, and that is that he has not read the Bill. I will challenge him on his conscience to say that he has read the Bill. It is really two Bills dovetailed into each other. The first part of the Bill is a Bill, as the Minister for Justice told us, designed to bring us back to the golden age of Roman jurisprudence when trial by jury was swept aside. The second part of the Bill is designed to ensure the certain conviction of persons charged with political offences at secret trials by the majority verdict of packed juries, and I will prove every single word of that definition.

To your own satisfaction.

Deputy Gorey is going. He is so fond of nonsense he does not like sense, and he runs away from it. It is not the first time Deputy Gorey ran, as I had occasion to tell him a few moments ago. This is called a Juries Protection Bill. Of all the dishonest Bills introduced into this House, and of all the dishonest things that have been said, the title of the Bill is easily the most dishonest. Under cover of bringing in a Bill here for the protection of jurors, a Bill which only deals with the problem in the least important of its sections, is brought before the Dáil. Deputy Gorey, in one of his lucid moments while speaking, asked us to deal with the Bill on its merits. We ask the House to deal with the Bill on its merits. We ask them to realise that this is a permanent Bill, that it is not temporary legislation, designed to deal with a purely temporary situation. Long after this situation, and after the men who are now sitting in this Dáil have ceased to concern the Irish people, this Bill, if not repealed, will be in operation. We have got to consider it on its merits. We have got to leave out of account any situation that produced it. This is a piece of permanent legislation that the Dáil must pass or reject, and I would remind Deputies—I am sorry I cannot remind Deputy Gorey, because he is not here—that this Bill, if passed, will continue in operation when Deputy Ruttledge is, perhaps, Minister for Justice and Deputy Gorey the prisoner in the dock. The powers which the Executive are now seeking for themselves by the passing of this Bill will be available for a Fianna Fáil Executive or for a Labour Executive in the course of a year or two. If a Fianna Fáil Executive decides to put the Bill into operation and to avail of every power that is to be conferred on the Executive by it for the purpose of consolidating their position in the country, let Deputies of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party not whine, because these powers could not be exercised on them if they themselves had not passed the Bill.

In his opening remarks, the Minister for Justice made a statement concerning the situation existing in Dublin, which, together with the statement which Deputy de Valera read as having been made by President Cosgrave during the recent Dublin City by-election and the extract which he read from some newspaper, made me believe that the City of Dublin that I thought I had been living in exists only in my dreams. I ask Deputies coming to the consideration of this Bill to try to get a grasp of the facts and to leave out of account the rhetoric of the Minister for Justice, and of the other speakers who advocate the Bill. An attempt was made to murder one juryman. The Minister for Justice told us that that attempt indicated the existence of a conspiracy. But he also told us, and was most emphatic about it, that the Civic Guards had that conspiracy by the throat. Now, there was an unsuccessful conspiracy to murder one juryman, a conspiracy of which only the Minister for Justice knows, but which the Civic Guards have by the throat, according to him. And because of one attempted crime the entire system of trial by jury is to be abolished and this parody of it erected in its place. This Bill is, in fact, more than anything else an attempt to camouflage the hopeless failure of the Civic Guards. If the Civic Guards were not inefficient, if they were able to deal with the situation that exists, if they were engaged in anything except the persecution of political opponents of the Government, there would be no necessity for the introduction of this measure.

The crime upon which this Bill is based was committed last January. There was very little talk about it until there was a by-election in North Dublin City in March. Then the members of Cumann na nGaedheal Party remembered the crime and came out upon public platforms as fierce denouncers of it. The Civic Guards were goaded into activity. Activity of what kind? Was it to arrest the perpetrators of that crime? Did they make even an effort to do so? I deliberately challenge them with having made no such effort. They went round the houses of those people whom they knew to be convinced opponents of the Government and proceeded upon a campaign of harassing them, a campaign which Free State judges have declared to be illegal. Because they were engaged in that campaign they have failed to arrest the perpetrators of that crime. This Bill is introduced for one reason—to cover up the failure of the Civic Guards, to cover up the hopeless inefficiency of that force, to cover up the corruption of the Detective Division. If it was not inefficient, if it was not corrupt —and I challenge it with corruption —we would not have this Bill before us. Deputies who will vote for this Bill should realise the situation. Do they think because an attempt was made to murder one juryman last January that the entire system of trial by jury should be abolished, as the Minister for Justice has threatened, and as Deputy Gorey has threatened, to confer upon us? I do not know if the Minister for Justice was lying last week when he told us that the Civic Guards had this conspiracy by the throat.

The Deputy must assume for the purpose of the debate that the Minister was not lying.

I assume that the Minister was not lying, and I will take it for granted that the Civic Guards have caught a Tartar—that they have the conspiracy by the throat but are unable to overpower it. I do not know if Deputies are prepared to believe that that is the situation. Most of them know as much about circumstances in this country as the Minister for Justice, I think. Do they really believe that there exists a conspiracy to murder which the Civic Guards have by the throat but cannot strangle, and which, despite its apparent effectiveness, has succeeded in making only one unsuccessful attempt upon a juryman four months ago? The Bill, however, as I said, should not be considered in relation to that particular attempt at all. It should not be considered in relation to the situation now existing, or to the men who are dealing with it. This is permanent legislation, designed to effect a permanent change in the jury system. As I said, it will be in operation, if passed and if not repealed, after this situation and after we ourselves are forgotten. It is as a Bill of that nature that we should deal with it, section by section, as Deputy Gorey very wisely advised.

Section 3 gives the State the right to refuse the panel of jurors to a prisoner. The reasons advanced for the refusal to give the panel are that the right has been abused and that the prisoner in some cases has secured the names merely for the purpose of exercising pressure upon the members of the panel called upon to try his case. Now, I think anybody with any experience of the law in this country will admit that the right of the prisoner to get a copy of the jury panel has always been abused. It is only two years since the Juries Act of 1927 was passed, the Act referred to in this Bill as the Principal Act. When that Act was going through the House it was deliberately and solemnly decided by the Deputies then present to confer this right to receive copies of the panel upon prisoners, although the Minister for Justice stated very definitely that he had personal knowledge that an abuse of the right was being carried on. He said:

It is within my knowledge that it is the beaten track for litigants from the country to come up to Dublin a fortnight or three weeks before their case comes on to embark upon a systematic canvass of the panel.

That was stated in the debate upon the Juries Bill on March 22nd, 1927. They knew that there was an evil; they knew that the right was capable of being abused, but at that time they deliberately decided to confer that right because they believed that, despite the abuse, elementary justice required that a prisoner who was given the right of challenging any member of a jury should be put in the position of knowing who the jury were. The whole purpose of this Bill is to load the dice against any person whom the Executive Council want to send to prison. Remember that a prisoner has the right to challenge only six members of the jury without showing cause. Obviously he can only exercise that right if he knows the names of every one on the jury panel, if he knows those who are being called upon to constitute a jury to try him. If he does not know the names, if, as in nine cases out of ten, he will be a man up from the country being tried in the Central Criminal Court in Dublin, where every individual is a stranger to him, you might as well take away the right of challenge altogether, because it is an empty farce when the names are not supplied. If you are going to consider a trial as a fair contest, between the State on the one hand, and the prisoner on the other hand, you have got to scrap this Bill altogether, because it will obviously make a fair trial impossible. I ask you to visualise the situation that will exist in the courts. On the one hand you have the prisoner, and on the other hand the State, represented by the Attorney-General or his agents, and you have this jury panel. The prisoner will have the right to challenge only six members of that panel, a right which will be practically of no value, if he does not know the members of the panel. As far as he is concerned the jury will be all strangers to him; he will have no information about them and he will be refused information about them. He can exercise as a right six challenges based upon the personal appearances of the men as they enter the box, but, when he has done that, he has no further say as to who shall compose the jury. On the other hand, the State not only knows every single member on the jury panel, but has at its disposal the Civic Guard, to get the biography of every member of the panel, and has, in addition, an unlimited right of challenge. It can keep on challenging every juror called, until it is satisfied that it has got twelve men who will be certain to convict the person whom they want to send to prison. Do you think that is a fair trial? Do you think it is not loading the dice against the prisoner? Do you think any man brought into a court in which that system is in operation would not be almost impelled to refuse to recognise it? I tell you, if you pass this Bill, you are going to do more to bring the whole administration of law and justice in this State into contempt than all your enemies have done since this State was established.

The salient features of trial by jury were at one time well known. They appear now to be in danger of being forgotten. I think it is the fundamental right of the accused person to know the names of those by whom he will be tried. I think he has also the fundamental right to have a unanimous verdict. The theory was that any man accused of a crime was innocent until twelve impartial men, empanelled as a jury, were convinced of his guilt. But that theory has been abandoned now. Although the Bill proposes to give to the Executive almost unlimited powers to pick a jury, still they are not content with that. They feel that they might make a mistake, and so the unanimous verdict is abolished also. There is to be a majority of nine. They are permitting the possibility of an error of judgement in the case of three of the men whom they may select or three of the men whom they may permit to go on the jury, despite the information of the police, and their power of challenge. They may possibly be so convinced of the innocence of the prisoner that they will not give a verdict against him, so it is necessary to provide for such a miscalculation, and therefore we have Section 5 which provides for majority verdicts. The whole Bill is designed to ensure that a certain individual, whom the Executive Council want to put out of the way, will be railroaded to prison without a shadow of justification. I am going to prove that further, because, after all, this provision relating to the trial need only come into operation in the case of a prisoner against whom the State have some evidence, no matter how unconvincing it is. But, supposing the State have no evidence, they can still, under this Bill, send a man to prison. In the first place, in the case of a man who they know will not recognise the court the procedure is simple. The man is just brought up and charged with any crime, it does not matter what it is. The man says, "I do not recognise the court," and he goes to prison for six months automatically. He can stay in prison for the rest of his natural life, as long as this Bill is in operation. Of course every six months he will be brought up into the daylight, again the farce will be gone through, and he will go back for another six months. I say this, that one single man with the strength to stick that out could bring this whole State into contempt, and could bring the whole administration of law and justice into contempt, and I hope, if this measure passes, that such a man will be found.

If the prisoner, however, does not take the course of refusing to recognise the court, and if the Executive are still determined to send him to jail under Section 8 they have provided other means by which the man can be railroaded to jail. It is merely necessary for a superintendent of the Civic Guard to come in and say that an attempt has been made to intimidate jurors. The trial is adjourned, the man goes back to prison, and the process can be repeated indefinitely. The word of a superintendent of the Civic Guard is sufficient. I would ask the Minister for Justice if he were here, and I will ask some other Minister to convey this to him: to tell us how the powers conferred upon superintendents of the Civic Guard by the Public Safety Act were exercised in the one solitary case that arose under that Act. I think in that one case of the exercise of the powers conferred by the Public Safety Act upon superintendents of the Civic Guard a very grave abuse of those powers was perpetrated, and an individual who was placed in prison afterwards recovered damages in the public courts for, I think, illegal arrest.

The section which provides for the automatic sentencing to six months' imprisonment of those refusing to recognise the court is, I think, a glaring instance of the stupidity of the Executive Council. They should know, from their experience in the past, the causes of the various errors made by the British Government in their attempts to administer this country. They should know that that section is based upon a complete misunderstanding, not merely of the Irish character, but of human nature. It will operate as a direct challenge to anybody who does not accept the Treaty position, to refuse to recognise the court, if charged with a political offence. It is a direct challenge, and, mind you, those who refuse to accept the Treaty position are not an inconsiderable minority, if they are not an actual majority, in this country. Even in 1923 they were not an inconsiderable minority, and the operation of that particular section will be, in the manner I have indicated, a direct challenge to those individuals if charged with political offences, at any time, to refuse to recognise the court, and to take the punishment that is decreed for them. Ministers should know that you cannot kill an idea with a bludgeon. The British Government thought it could, but members of the Executive Council—and surely they have enough experience of the British Government's methods — should realise that you cannot kill an idea just by punishing a person holding the idea. The prisoner who refuses to recognise the court is not committing a crime, but is merely giving expression to the idea which he holds. You cannot kill him by bludgeoning him. In that section of the Bill you do not go back to the Justinian Age; you go back to the Stone Age.

Possibly even in the Stone Age you would be able to get persons holding Ministerial office who would realise the stupidity of such a course as this. That section would act as a challenge. Instead of having fewer cases of prisoners refusing to recognise the courts you are going to have much more, because it would be against human nature that the section should operate in the way that the Executive Council pretend to think it will operate. But they know quite well what the effect of the section will be. The introduction of the Bill is, after all, only a continuation of the campaign opened in the Rotunda by the President on the occasion of the by-election in the North City. That campaign was a damp squib. The Government's candidate only got in by a small majority. The wild statements made by Ministers and others on that occasion have been taken up and exaggerated in England and America with disastrous results to our national credit and the tourist traffic. Now, in order to try and pretend that the Government are dealing adequately with the situation, this Bill is introduced. It is only a pretence. If the Government were dealing adequately with the situation, —the situation, I mean, caused by the commission of a certain crime in this State—they would sack every high officer of the Dublin detective division for sheer incompetence and put men into their place who would try and electrify that body to some degree of utility in dealing with the suppression of crime. It is because the detectives have proved to be utterly useless that we have this back-door method of achieving the end which the detectives have failed to achieve. The only assault ever made upon a juryman was made in January last. Not a single person has even been charged with that offence—no shred of evidence has been secured by the detective division. As I say, they were so busy persecuting the political opponents of the Government that they had no time to deal with real crime.

The Bill also provides for the holding of political trials in secret. Evil deeds always love the dark. If the Executive Council felt that there could be even the appearance of justice at the trial they would not be so anxious to secure that the trial should take place in secret. If they even thought that they could stage a fair trial they would let the public in to see the stage effect. It is because they know that when this Bill comes into operation there will not be even the pretence of justice that it is necessary that the farcical proceedings should take place behind closed doors.

The reception which the Bill has secured from their own supporters throughout the country has sadly disappointed the Executive. The people of Dublin, at any rate, do not happen to believe all that Ministers say concerning the situation and the conditions under which they are living. They happen to know themselves that there is no situation in this country like what the President and Ministers pretend. When they see the Minister for Justice assuring them that the Civic Guards have the only conspiracy that the Civic Guards know of by the throat they take it for granted that all is well. But when they see a deliberate attempt to build up a huge "German plot" and to alter the whole jury system, upon the allegation that circumstances are other than they know them to be, they are more inclined to laugh at those who think they can fool them in that manner than to feel any way excited over the situation which they are told exists.

Deputy O'Connell wanted to know if we found a criminal masquerading as a patriot what would we do? We have not been in this House two years yet, and we found quite a number of people—I had better not use the term, as it would be unparliamentary—a number masquerading as patriots. Deputy O'Connell has been here much longer than we have been and must know them much more intimately. Quite seriously, I assure Deputy O'Connell that any person against whom the slightest shred of evidence can be produced to associate him with criminal activities will, as far as we can bring it about, be given the opportunity of a fair trial before a jury of his peers, and if he is found guilty he will suffer whatever sentence that court decrees. I do not think it is necessary to say more than that. Any person who can be convicted of a crime will be punished, but certainly no person, if we can help it, is going to be punished without conviction. No person, if we can stop this Bill going through, is going to be convicted without evidence.

The Bill, of course, is thrown at the heads of Deputies with the threat that if they do not take it worse is going to happen. What might happen, as has been indicated by the Minister for Justice and Deputy Gorey, is the abolition of trial by jury altogether. It is only two months since the North City by-election, and surely Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies do not swallow their words quite as quickly as all that. They should remember the issue upon which they fought that election campaign—that the right of trial by jury would be preserved in the State; that no matter what gun bullies came out to stop it, they would see that trial by jury existed, because it was one of the fundamental rights of the Irish people. Did not every Cumann na nGaedheal Deputy who spoke in that campaign use these words upon some platform or other? Now, two months later, they are sitting behind the Ministers and proposing to vote for a Bill which is a big step in the direction of the abolition of trial by jury, and which is introduced with the threat that the abolition of trial by jury is coming afterwards. The whole system of trial by jury is to be abolished, and we are going to get back, as the Minister told us, to the golden age of Roman jurisprudence, something like two thousand years ago. I hope Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies will appreciate the responsibilities which rest upon them and the importance of the decision they are going to make, because it is an important decision. If they decide to abolish the sanctions of the law which prevailed heretofore, and to establish this new system in its place —this farce of a system—it is, I think, inevitable that the courts and the law and the whole administration of justice will receive the well-deserved contempt of all decent men in due course. If they want to secure from the people respect for their institutions and for the enactments of this House, the way to do it is to reject this Bill. If the people saw the majority of this House, as at present constituted, rejecting an enactment of this kind, the prestige of this State and of its institutions would, I believe, be increased one-hundred fold in consequence of that fact. I ask them, therefore, to realise the responsibility that is being now placed upon them, and I ask them, when they come to vote, to forget for one five minutes their obligations to the Party Whip. Let them remember, if only for five minutes, their duty to their constituents and to the country, and if they decide to let the Whip pull one way, while they go the other way, the way in which the interests of their constituents and the country lie, they will vote with us against this Bill.

The Deputy who has just sat down, having carefully tried to misrepresent the history of a recent period, seemed to issue a warning to the members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party particularly. He warned them to remember that this is a permanent Bill. With that optimism which he indicated so very blandly at the recent by-election, when he announced that we were to be beaten, he still anticipates that his Party will be the Government here in the next year, or at least within the next two years, and he warned us that this Bill, when his Government comes into power, if it ever does come into power, will be the law of the land. He seemed to think that that would terrify us. It seems to me that the very possibility—I do not think it is a probable possibility —that Deputies on the benches opposite may at some time mislead the Irish people into giving them a majority and therefore put them in the position of becoming the Government, makes it very necessary that such powers as are in this Bill, or any similar Bill, should be the law of this land. We know quite well that Deputies opposite have their policy more or less dictated, as was stated the other day, by any gang of ruffians who choose to shout Republic louder than they do. We know quite well that as soon as they come into power they are going to be taken at their word. Deputy de Valera says that this is an illegal assembly. Deputy Lemass paraded one time as the Minister for Defence.

I was a real one.

Therefore his successor in the same position is a real one. If the Deputies opposite came into power does anybody think that they would have—I will not use the word guts—but they would have the ordinary courage to bring in a Bill which would enable them to deal adequately with the people whom they are always defending here? Is there any reason to believe that the action of the murder gang outside would be other than intensified if we had the misfortune to have a government selected from Deputies opposite? Does anybody think that the Deputies opposite, with their record, would ever have the guts to bring in a Bill here to deal with the situation that we are dealing with in this Bill? We know they would not. But if such a Bill was in operation, if such a Bill had been passed already, they might hide themselves behind the benches, you might say, or might stand quiescent and allow the powers that existed in that Act to be put in force. They might possibly—I do not believe that they would—allow such extreme powers as existed to be brought into operation against the gun bullies provided they could assure the gun bullies that they were not to blame, that they could not alter the law. They would say to the gun bullies: "This is a law that was brought in by the blackguardly Cumann na nGaedheal Party when they were in power." I hope that any special powers that we may bring in as a Government will be in operation when the Fianna Fáil Party comes into power, so that they may serve as a useful mask for them to hide themselves behind and to be able to assure their allies that they really stand with them, even though they happen to be acting against them.

A favourite theme, I am told, of mine is the question of social order. It is not a favourite theme of mine, but Deputies opposite show such extraordinary, elemental ignorance of what a State is and what it exists for that one has to repeat what one has already said. I shall begin at the beginning if you like.

Teach us.

We realise from the organ of speech that men are meant to live in society. All nature shows there is necessity for law to exist in such circumstances—that law has to exist to maintain the order that must be there. The very fundamental idea of order is certainly protection of life, and secondly, protection of property. The Deputy says there was only one attempt to murder a juryman and that that was last January. There was only one attempt because protection was given to jurymen. Deputies opposite, in their more or less official organ, rejoiced that because jurymen had to be protected against their gun bully associates the jurymen were handicapped in the ordinary business of earning their daily bread. Their organ rejoiced, and said that it was glad tidings for their followers that if men who had been sworn brought in a finding that they considered in harmony with truth, that if they would not turn perjurers— Deputies opposite are fond of per-jury—the mere protection of them from gun bullies would at any rate injure them in earning their daily bread. Last January there was an attempt to murder a man. We referred to it in the by-election.

And you got your answer.

We had Deputy Lemass assuring us before the result that they were going to win.

I forgot about the postal votes.

Mr. Boland

You forgot the 600 postal votes. No wonder you kept the Army going. That turned the election.

That is a rather blue look out for the Party opposite.

That is the only purpose they are serving.

There was undoubtedly, and I think there is still, a plot to defeat the ends of justice here. They have only attempted to murder one juryman and only, to the best of my knowledge, actually murdered one witness. One thing seems to me to be very clear, and that is that these men like what you might call a written guarantee of security before they go out to murder.

You are personally acquainted with their customs?

We have a long history from the time the Deputy was participating in the Civil War down to the time they downed arms because as Deputy de Valera said the Free State Government did things he thought they would never dream of doing. The gun bullies at present are very much like your friends of 1922. They like a guarantee of security and the moment it becomes dangerous they are rather quiescent. It has been made rather dangerous for them and that is one of the greatest tributes I know to what the Deputy calls the policy of harassing the opponents of the Government. I am very glad the Deputy recognises these people as opponents of the Government; I am glad also he does not recognise them as opponents of Fianna Fáil. We have made it rather difficult for them. We have only got to sit here when the motion for the adjournment any night comes on to see very clearly that the policy of the Department of Justice has made things rather hot for the gun bullies so that their protectors here have to get up every night to try to make life a little easier for them. The greatest tribute I know to that policy is seen here every night from the Fianna Fáil Party.

There is no use talking of the time when the British Government were here. Has the Government supported by the majority of the members of this House a right to govern or has it not? If it has, there is no parity between it and the British Government. If we did all the things the Deputy anticipates we are going to do, to pack juries, etc., presumably the Irish people will get rid of us.

A Deputy

They will.

Wait and see. It is always better to prophesy after the event. The British Government could have packed juries and done anything they liked, and the unanimous voice of the people against them. Yet they carried on. We are subject to the people of Ireland; the British Government were not. We, as a Government, and any Government that exists, and any State, exist primarily for maintaining social order in the country. Social order is incompatible with murder, which Deputies opposite are trying to defend at present. We have made it rather difficult for the murderers of people who are not personæ gratæ with the gun bullies. Therefore, there have not been as many murders as there otherwise might have been, because gun bullies are cowards, as Deputies know. That is the reason that has prevented it. The Deputies' own paper stated that the business of protecting jurors was injuring the jurors in earning their daily bread. As the law stands, a man can be called upon to sit on a jury. Is it the position that the would-be murderers must have every facility for knowing exactly who sits on the jury and what his finding is?

Deputies opposite want to secure a reduction of the Gárda Síochána. They want the Army abolished or reduced. They want it also made impossible that juries should be protected.

That is a gross misrepresentation, but, of course, we do not expect anything else.

Perhaps I should say that the Deputies opposite want the Gárda Síochána maintained at least at their present number and the Army increased in number.

Do not put them in their bare feet.

The Deputies opposite talk very blandly about the attempt to murder only one juryman. Does the Deputy not believe that there was such a conspiracy as we have spoken of? Has the Deputy ever received, as I received and a great many people of the country have received, and as every Deputy in the House has received, printed pamphlets saying who were the jurymen and calling upon the people to indicate their disapproval of the actions of the jurymen because these jurymen did not commit perjury? Did the Deputy receive these leaflets?

I accepted the word of the Minister for Justice that he had the conspiracy by the throat.

The Minister showed that he had the conspiracy by the throat by the fact that these things have not happened since. But does the Deputy say that any single man who wants to go about his daily business and, as a citizen, is to be subject to be called upon to act as a juror, should have to run the risk afterwards of being murdered if not protected? The whole policy of the Party opposite seems to be complete immunity for the would-be murderer. As far as the law stands at present, it seems to do everything it can to facilitate the giving of information about jurors. Deputies opposite know that certain women go round the courts and make out lists of jurors and witnesses and that they make out these lists when any trials come on in court of what the Deputy calls "political cases." There is no such thing as a political case here or political crime. Any man who resists the ordinary administration of the law in this country, as administered by this Government, is an ordinary criminal in every sense of the word. If the Deputies opposite disapprove of the policy of the Government, they have a right to do it and go to the people and get the votes of the people.

Deputy de Valera said that the Free State Government had done things that he never dreamt they would do. But when it comes to gun play these people fall into the category known as "criminals," and they should be dealt with accordingly. The Deputy says this Bill is camouflage to cover the inefficiency of the Civic Guards. If you read a case of any murder in France, England or any place like that, the murderer is caught. If you examine how the murderer is caught, you will find that he is caught through what you might call lack of organisation. If you have an organisation of men who go out and shoot men in the dark, in the usual cowardly fashion in which they do, and then hand the guns to the young women who carry them so as to allow them get away safely——

Or bring them back to the barracks.

That I regard as a dastardly and dishonest remark. It is suggested in a pamphlet that this Government brought about the attempted murder of Mr. White and the actual murder of Mr. Armstrong in order to bring in such a Bill as this. Every Deputy knows that that is a dastardly lie, and the person who wrote that knows it is a lie, because that person is one who could give information to the Civic Guards that would assist them in bringing the murderer to justice. Everybody knows that when you have an organisation such as exists, and has existed before, that it is a very different matter to bring the murderer to justice and to produce evidence against individual murderers. Every Deputy knows perfectly well that, provided you have an organisation working on certain lines, even an organisation of moderate size, it can be made practically, if not entirely, a totally different problem from murder in the ordinary circumstances. With that organisation operating, a man has a number of houses where he can go.

There is no need for him to go out and take unnecessary risks. That is a very different problem from the ordinary murderer or the robber or anything like that. Every Deputy opposite knows that but for the sake of trying to mislead the people, they pretend they do not know anything about these things. It is not a matter of camouflaging the inefficiency of the Gárda Síochána. The Deputy said nothing was heard about the murder until it came along to the March election. There is a very peculiar situation in this country. You have a very small murder gang —organised, but small. In any ordinary country, people of that type are isolated. They have no defenders. Here we have a peculiar situation. We have had elections going on in the country. We have had a Government here in power for some time and, naturally, every act we have done has irritated or annoyed somebody. There are saints of the moral law but there are very few saints of the civil law. Very few people are really anxious to pay their income tax. Very few people who have a margarine factory are anxious that the equities of the case should be considered instead of their business. As a result of that, the Government have annoyed a certain number of people. These people do not necessarily because of their annoyance re-act towards the gunmen. As a choice between this Government and the gunmen they vote for us every time. Deputies come along then and they assure the people that they are a constitutional Party, that they are a Party that it is perfectly safe to vote for, that if they are elected there will be no upheaval or no trouble and that they stand for the Constitution and everything in that way, capitalising our unpopularity and getting a number of the people to vote for them. They got, I think, 57 Deputies elected at the last election. In the election before that, I think they got about seven out-and-out Republicans out of 152 Deputies.

You succeeded well.

We got a lot in North Dublin.

I am not talking about North Dublin. You have even the small gunman crowd supported and protected, and every Act which we bring in to get after them is opposed, and there is an attempt to thwart it by people who have assured the electors outside—57 of them have done it, if you like—that they are even more constitutional than we are. When pushed to it, those Deputies get up here and say they do not recognise any authority in this Dáil, and that the real authority to govern this country exists in a crowd of gunmen outside. They did not fight the election upon that point. Those Deputies now warn us about the permanency of this Bill, and about the danger of it in their hands. We want it in the Deputies' hands if they are ever placed in power by the people, and we want to make it as easy as possible for Deputies opposite to do all the face-saving for themselves, and at the same time get after the gunmen.

We will bring you in under Section 8.

If this Government goes out, and if the electors give the majority to the Party opposite the laws made by the new Government are going to be the laws of this land, and if any Party is prepared to resist those laws by force, I hope all the power to deal with such resistance will be in the hands of the elected Government, even though it be a Government of Deputies opposite. Deputies have nothing to fear on that side. Once the majority goes in their favour we are going to be decent, law-abiding citizens. The people they will have to get after then will be their present allies.

We might make you first citizen of the land.

The Deputy over there questions our belief that there is such a conspiracy. He knows perfectly well that I have received, and that he himself has received, pamphlets and leaflets from parties to that conspiracy. They seek to enlist his sympathy with the gun-bully as against the juryman, and as far as I can judge from their official organ they have got that sympathy. The official organ rejoiced that the jurymen who refused to commit perjury have to be protected. The Deputies opposite have very peculiar ideas about being innocent until you are proved guilty, and all the rest of it. The first thing is that the ordinary decent citizen must be able to live his life in safety. That is much more important than that Miss Sheila Humphries, or somebody else like that, should not run the risk of spending a certain period in jail. If it is a choice between anybody like Miss Sheila Humphries spending a period in jail and the safety of the ordinary, decent citizen of this country——

On a point of order, I think the Minister's reference to a particular person in this case is very uncalled for and is not justifiable.

It is only in keeping with the general procedure adopted by the Ministers opposite. The Ministers there have said that men were guilty of crimes for which they have not yet been tried. It is only in keeping with tradition when the Minister mentions a name.

There is no tradition in the matter of mentioning people's names.

If you want evidence I will give it to you. The Minister for Industry and Commerce in a debate here mentioned that two or three people were guilty.

Will the Deputy allow me to answer the point of order? The Chair has, on many occasions, both in the House and before the Committee on Procedure, expressed an objection to the mentioning of names of civil servants, police, soldiers, or any other servants of the State, in the House, and to the mentioning of any citizen's name by way of accusation or otherwise, if it can be avoided, in the House. That has occasionally happened but the Chair does not approve. If there could be a general agreement that the names of individual servants of the State or individual citizens would not be mentioned here under the privilege of the House, it would, I think, be for the good of our debates.

I regret very much that I used the name of a particular person. I shall be quite ready to have it deleted from the records of the House. I only used it because when one talks in a less particular way Deputies opposite like to suggest that one has nothing behind what one may say. When we are talking about an organisation, and so on, we have something very definite in our minds; we have very definite knowledge.

I see. We know now.

Deputies opposite also have equal knowledge in regard to certain matters. They consider that trial is the fair test as between the State and the person who is arrested. Trial is merely a means of protecting the ordinary citizen and, in so far as it does that, it is desirable. The Deputy suggests that the State is in the position to know every member of the jury panel, and Deputy Boland complains that people are unjustly accused, and that they are not tried.

On a point of order, the Minister stated that I said people were accused unjustly. I state that when the debate in connection with prisoners was in progress Ministers declared that men on the "run" and untried were actually guilty. They said that before the men were tried at all. I said that, on one occasion before we came in here, the President stated the same thing.

Will the Deputy remind me of that?

I will remind the President of it. I will give the man's name.

Since we were condemned to death by an organisation that the Deputies opposite were associated with in 1922, I think we on this side can be declared not to have been tried in spite of the legitimacy of the Government of which Deputy Lemass was a member. Constantly this afternoon there have been remarks that, by implication, definitely accused us of crime. There has been definitely the suggestion that if power exists with the Government to know every member of the jury, we will use our information unfairly. It has been suggested that the reason we do not want names publicly known is a reason to suit ourselves. The Deputy referred to the canvassing of jurors. One can rely on the fact that if a juryman is canvassed he will still keep his oath and find in accordance with the evidence. But it is a different matter when there is a threat to murder him. The prisoner, according to the Deputy, will not know the jury and his friends will not know, but the Government will. Is there a suggestion that the Government is going to have a juryman murdered if he does not find in accordance with their wishes? We want the names of jurymen not to be known so as to save them from being murdered. It is from the gunmen crowd that they run that risk and not from the Government here.

I think the Minister either misunderstood or misrepresented what I said. I was talking about facilities given to the State to pack a jury and I said the State knew every name on the panel. The prisoner will not know the names of the jurors. The State has the right to challenge an unlimited number, and it is quite obvious that they could eventually get twelve people who will bring in the verdict they want and the prisoner will not be able to stop it.

There is a suggestion that we are trying to find prisoners guilty whether or not they are guilty. That is something on a par with finding us guilty without any trial. The Deputy says that the prisoner should know the jury. He might as well have said that the prisoner's friends should have the right to murder the jury. We consider the murder of a juryman a very serious matter, and if there are any means of making it less feasible those means should be taken advantage of.

Why permit the C.I.D. to get the names?

We do not anticipate that the C.I.D. will murder jurymen.

Then you are very innocent.

The Deputy mentioned that if a man refused to recognise the court he could be detained indefinitely. He said that a single man with strength to stick it out would eventually bring the State into contempt, and, he added, "I hope such a man will be found." The Deputy hopes that a man will be found who will refuse to recognise the courts established under the authority of the Dáil.

I hope that somebody will be found to fight that section. I would be prepared to do so myself.

The Deputy hopes that a man will be found who will refuse to recognise the courts set up by the Government elected by the people. Let him get up in the next election and tell that to the people. Let him tell them that, although he is elected, he hopes there will be men found who will resist every law that can be made.

To resist this law.

The Deputy hopes there will be such a man found. He did his very best in times gone by.

"And if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

Then he told us about the British Government and what we should have learned from them. There is no parity whatsoever. We are merely the servants of the Irish people and the British Government were the masters. The British Government remained whether the Irish people wanted them to remain or not. We go out as soon as the Irish people refuse to vote for us. It is time that the Deputies opposite recognised that. They come in here and take their places in the Dáil and then, in the next minute, they turn round and say that this Dáil has no authority whatever. That means that if they are ever elected a Government by the Irish people, and if a criminal is executed under the law, the Deputies opposite will be actually parties to murder. That is the only logical outcome of their statements. The Deputy said that in the elections that we fought, members of the Government said that they were determined to maintain trial by jury. I can speak for nobody but myself. It was not trial by jury I was worrying about. It was the murder of jurors that I was worried about, and I demonstrated that voting for opponents of our Government was actually giving comfort to the murderer. Deputy de Valera bore me out here when he said that we were an illegal body, that when people outside executed a juryman it was an execution, but that when an ordinary murderer is executed, as a result of the action of our courts, that that is murder.

He said nothing of the kind.

His words call for a great deal of explanation. He is always being misrepresented. Either this Dáil is a legitimate body and its laws are legitimate laws, or it is not. If it is legitimate, the men who resist these laws are criminals and should be dealt with. If it is not legitimate, then every act we do is illegal and when a murderer is executed under our Acts we are parties to murder. You cannot have it both ways. Either Deputy de Valera denies any authority in the Dáil or he recognises that he was merely masquerading when he called himself President and when Deputy Lemass called himself Minister for Defence up to 1925. If he was not masquerading, then he was President and Deputy Lemass was Minister for Defence and their heirs in the same association have the rights and the powers that they had then. It is either one way or the other. Whatever way they take it, Deputy de Valera, true to his traditions, will say that he was misrepresented but nobody will know until the Last Day, when we will possibly know everything, what exactly his policy is. Trial by jury is a fundamental right but there is a much more fundamental right and that is the right of men to live in society as law-abiding citizens and to have security for their lives. As things are here, we have trial by jury. A man is liable to serve on a jury but by a decision of the gunmen, if he does not break his oath when one of their confederates is being tried, he runs the risk of being murdered unless we protect him. We have protected jurors so far and we propose to have an additional method of doing so, a method which will disappoint Deputies opposite in as much as it will not interfere with a juryman earning his livelihood. A man has a right to be a decent citizen, to act as a juryman, to keep his oath, and to earn his living without interference. The advertising of jurors' names and the giving of information to prisoners, to the women around the court, to prisoners' friends, and to prisoners' organisations would facilitate the people who want to murder jurymen and would facilitate those, like the editor of the "Nation" and the murder-gang, who want to injure them by preventing them earning their livelihood. We are bringing in this Bill for the fundamental purpose of the maintenance of law and order and the protection of the lives of decent citizens. The protection of citizens is a matter of much more concern to the Government, or to any Government worthy of the name, than is the convenience of gentlemen who want to do everything they can to thwart the administration of justice in this country. We are the Government here and we are the only people responsible for government and the people outside who murder or attempt to murder jurymen are just ordinary murderers. Every time the State is threatened, fundamental rights go by the board and extraordinary measures have to be used. So far, the organisation threatening the State is small, even though it has Deputies opposite who defend it, and it can be dealt with by moderate means; but if the State and social order are seriously threatened, measures must be brought in by any Government in power— whether it be Deputies opposite or ourselves—to protect citizens and to maintain order in the State. This is a very mild way of doing it, yet Deputies opposite are very indignant with it.

I am opposed to the Second Reading of this Bill, but, possibly, for different reasons to those given by other Deputies in opposition to it. I will state my reasons for opposing the Second Reading, and when the Committee Stage is reached I shall have one or two amendments on the Order Paper which will possibly give a better interpretation of my views on the whole matter than any contribution which I might make this evening. I agree that recent happenings in the country, but more particularly in the city of Dublin, do not conduce in any way to the stability of the State or of the institutions of the State which, I feel sure, every decent and law-abiding citizen hopes to see maintained. I have as great abhorrence of crimes of the kind referred to by the Minister for Justice when introducing the measure as he has, and I am prepared to go even further than that and to say that very drastic steps indeed should be taken in order to stop crime of the character which this Bill pretends to prevent, especially so far as the protection of jurors is concerned, men who are carrying out their obligations to the State and to its citizens. Deputy de Valera talked of certain people outside the House who are not represented here, and again we had the challenge that this House is not representative of the Irish people. I say that this House does represent the Irish people. Deputy O'Connell made the position of the Labour Party perfectly clear in relation to that and kindred statements.

The impression conveyed to me at any rate by the speech of Deputy de Valera, and also that of Deputy Lemass, was that, if the oath were removed, a stop would be put to the assassinations, murders and threatening letters which have been, unfortunately, too frequent in this country of late. Are we to take it that this is the kind of threat that is to be held out to established government in this country—remove the oath, remove every obstacle, remove the law, remove every institution of the State in order that a few assassins may have full play for their revolvers and their Peter-the-Painters? Personally I cannot subscribe to that view, and I feel that speeches of that kind are more responsible for the class of conduct, which we have been discussing here this evening, than perhaps the propaganda indulged in by a certain type of newspaper in this country. I feel that there are a number of irresponsibles behind that kind of journalism, which has been referred to, but we have amongst the Fianna Fáil Deputies in this House enlightened, responsible men, and I feel that they have not properly considered the effect of their speeches nor the effect of their conduct in relation to the speeches, particularly on the youth of the country. Notwithstanding the fact that I am in opposition to the Government and intend voting against the Bill, I believe that the Government has sufficient evidence to show that a campaign is in existence in this country to suborn young boys and young girls into doing acts of violence, which, perhaps, some of those who incite them have not themselves the pluck or courage to carry out, if I can use such words as pluck and courage in connection with the dastardly outrages that have taken place in Dublin within the last few months.

I submit that the Government of this or any other country has a duty to perform. It must protect citizens who are carrying out the functions which citizenship entails, but I submit that in this measure the Government is not grappling with that evil in the right way. If there is any institution of the State which I hold dear and which I maintain many good citizens in the State hold dear, it is the institution of trial by jury. I do know that at different periods in every country's history certain circumstances have arisen in which it has been necessary to interfere very violently with certain traditions of constitutional law. I go so far as to say that for a time certain events in history go to show that they practically abrogated constitutional law altogether, but here I do not see the necessity for that extreme step. I am prepared to lend my help to track down and put down assassination of every kind, but I feel that this Bill, whilst presumably setting out to do a certain thing, is going far beyond what is absolutely necessary.

While saying that, I believe at the same time that if these organisations which have been referred to by the Minister for Justice are to be allowed to continue unchecked, or, perhaps, a better way of putting it would be to say that if they are not very soon checked, a time will come in this State when every member of every Party in this House, and the people of the country, will have to declare for one side or the other. They shall have to declare for order or declare themselves on the side of disorder, on the side of intimidation and assassination or on the side of liberty and the freedom of the subject. That is the alternative with which I see we will be faced, if this conduct is not immediately grappled with, if the assassin and the gunman in this country are not put into their proper place. Nobody in this House feels more strongly than I do in this particular regard, but I believe, as I have already said, that the Minister has gone too far. I would not be so strong, perhaps, in my objection to this measure were it not for the fact that the Minister, when introducing the Bill, said that it was not a temporary expedient, but a permanent measure. In other words, in one Act we are to put an end to the institution of trial by jury because of the operations of a few gunmen and assassins in our country. It effects a permanent alteration in the procedure for the trial of criminal charges. That is what Section 4 suggests. Trial by jury, as we have known it, gave us an assurance that the accused person at least got a fair trial from twelve of his fellow-citizens, most, if not all, of whom were of the same intelligence and possibly of the same training as himself. Whatever faults may have been inherent in the jury system, it was at least a guarantee that the prisoner would get a fair trial. There may be something to be said for the clause which suggests that the verdict of a majority of the jury should, in certain cases, be accepted as the verdict of the jury, but in the present circumstances I suggest, owing to the atmosphere that exists between the two predominant Parties in the State, it is open to grave objection.

I may be asked have I any alternatives. I do not like to indulge in criticism of a destructive kind. So far I have refrained from any destructive criticism but at the same time I feel, as everyone of us should feel, that in criticising a Bill of this kind we ought to have some alternative to offer. Deputy O'Connell suggested that certain powers should be vested in the Attorney-General. I would go a step further and suggest that rather than make a mockery of trial by jury, I would prefer to suspend in these cases trial by jury altogether and have a prisoner brought before a court comprised of say two judges who would be arbiters in the case to decide whether the offence is of such a nature that it should go before judges of the High Court. I think in these cases, let us say a case of murder, or a case of carrying arms with felonious intent, that in order to protect our jurymen, we should have three judges to try the case and abolish the trial by jury for the time being. Let this be an Act which will abolish trial by jury altogether and let three judges of the High Court be the tribunal to try the case. I have sufficient confidence that these men will get a fair trial. I offer that as an alternative to what is suggested in the Bill. The trial by jury suggested in the Bill is mere mockery.

I give an alternative which I consider a fair one, and as we are told that jurymen will have to be protected, if the alternative is adopted you will have no jurymen to protect. You will only have to protect those judges who are already being protected. It will be very much easier and less expensive to protect three judges than twelve jurymen. I might develop that. I have just merely stated the principle; the details can be afterwards filled in. I would also suggest that the Executive should have the right for a stated period, a period which you might leave to the Minister for Justice, to claim that in particular cases in which there was a danger of intimidating jurors, that the prisoner should be brought to trial without any jury—that is to say that in the opinion of the Executive the offence was considered such as to warrant the case going before those three judges.

I offer that to the Minister as a solution, at any rate, and as an important contribution to this discussion. Now, if there is one thing more than another that has come out of the discussion so far as it has proceeded this evening it is this. On the one side the official Opposition declared that they want to see law and order restored to the country and that law and order cannot be restored so long as there is a minority of people outside this Dáil who will not subscribe to the oath, and for that reason, while not exactly justifying, to say the least of it, they do not do much to discourage the class of conduct which this Bill was intended to meet, and subsequently to prevent. But, then, what have we got from the other side?—nothing but an attempt to justify a Bill of this kind. In my view it is not the product of a statesmanlike Executive or a Ministry that has any pretensions to restore law and order in the country. I regret to have to say this. I examined the Bill—therefore I cannot be charged with not having read it—clause by clause in all its implications, and I find it would be far honester, far better to abolish, trial by jury, and to have two or three Supreme Court judges to try such cases as this Bill deals with for a period to be defined by the Minister. I think it would be a disgrace and very discreditable to the Executive of this country, and particularly to the Minister's Department to suggest that we have to abrogate one of the greatest rights this country or any country has, one of the things that has always been a feather in the cap of the British Constitution, the fact that one could always claim, with success, to be tried by twelve of his fellow-countrymen. Are we going to be amongst the first of the Western European nations at any rate to abrogate that right? Personally, I stand for freedom in that particular regard and I am not going to give a vote for the Bill as it now stands.

I am prepared to go further than even the Minister suggests. It is only to be for a time, such time as the Minister and the Executive are sure that the assassins, who are certainly present in this country, thank God, not in any very large numbers, are exterminated. I will heartily co-operate with him in that, as far as I can, and I do not want the Minister or anyone else to misunderstand me. I stand for the great principle of trial by jury. If I were a juror I would go to the jury box. I would not hesitate. Some of the Dublin jurymen, when evidence of the strongest character was produced, failed to convict. I agree that a great deal is to be said for the Ministers' and the Executive Council's point of view and the point of view that is behind this Bill. I say they have shown little courage in this Bill. In my view it is more or less a gesture to these very people that you fear them or that there is some fear in the jurymen of this country. I believe that what has happened in Dublin in the last few weeks would not happen in any other county in Ireland. Possibly it will be said that this terror exists in no other county except Dublin. That may be true, to an extent. We do know that it exists in other parts of the Free State, but not to the extent which would justify any great alarm on the part of the citizens. We know that cheap and nasty propaganda is indulged in. We know that literature of a certain kind finds its way into our letter boxes, and we know as well that the secret printing presses are at work. At the same time I think the State is big enough and that there are men in the State big enough to stand up to it without introducing a measure of this kind which to my mind in its present form is a sign of weakness and not of strength.

I understood that this would have a Second Reading to-day, and I intervene now to ask Deputy Corish to postpone his motion until to-morrow. I think it is better that debates of this kind end on the day on which they are opened.

There are a number of members of our Party who feel very strongly on this matter and who wish to express themselves on it.

I hope they will have something to say.

We object to the Government taking Private Members' time to-night.

I am afraid I am in the same position. I have consulted my colleagues and they are in agreement with me. I think the President is an optimist if he thinks he will get through with the Bill, even if he had until 10.30.

It is a great thing to be an optimist.

In listening to-day to the speeches delivered by the chief Opposition Party in this House one would imagine that the only people in this country who mattered were the prisoners and criminals. All their speeches were one sequence of elaborate pleas for the extension of privileges or of what they called the rights of the prisoners. Not one of them faced up to the actual situation, to the actual fact which they know exists in the City of Dublin at present. Not one of them gave any consideration to fair samples of the citizens of Dublin, that is the jurymen of Dublin. None of them considered nor was there any reference made to the appalling position in which those jurymen at present find themselves. They find themselves in a position ringed around by little organisations, each of these little pestilential organisations thirsting for the blood of the Dublin jurors, each of them linked together in some kind of a loose alliance. The only common bond seems to be the driving force to break down the jury system which at the moment exists in this country.

That is the situation which confronts the Executive Council, and, being confronted with such a situation, I take it, is the explanation why the Government, straight away, did not adopt the suggestion put forward by the Labour Party, a suggestion with which every one of us must have a considerable amount of sympathy, that is the suggestion to establish special courts to deal with special types of crime. To take such action straight away would have given to the people inside those organisations an idea that they had been successful in their deliberate campaign to break down the jury system, because that is their one objective.

This campaign against the Irish jury system apparently was conceived by someone about the summer of 1926. In June, 1926, an armed raid was carried out on the Under-Sheriff's office. The only thing taken from that office was a panel of the jury. Later on, an individual concerned in that raid was arrested, charged and found guilty, and an organ, calling itself the "Dublin News," writing with regard to the trial, stated that this person had nothing to be ashamed of or nothing to be sorry for, that the seizure of these documents was carried out under orders and that it was a political act. That is a certain amount of evidence that there was at least one disciplined organisation where there were superiors in a position to give orders to subordinates, and whose deliberate policy was to attack the jury system and to regard such activities as being political activities. This was a political act. It was carried out under orders. The individuals concerned had nothing to be sorry for, nothing to be ashamed of, it was perfectly right, not a regrettable thing or not a shameful thing, that the panel of Dublin jurors should be seized in order that the names contained in that document might be used as material to intimidate, irritate and coerce those jurors whose names were on that panel. The next action took place four months later, on October 15th, when each of the jurors whose names were on that panel was circularised. Each and every one of the jurors got a circular stating what individuals were before them for trial, what their offences were, and, more or less, implying to the jurors what their action should be. Those circulars were sent out by an organisation calling itself Cumann na mBan. Here you have evidence of a second organisation joining the pack.

Except we are to take it that the armed men who raided the Under-Sheriff's office took their orders from women, we must admit that this is a second organisation that has joined in the conspiracy. These same jurors were some weeks later circularised by an organisation calling itself the Political Prisoners Committee. The raid was in June. By the second week of October we have certainly two, and probably three, organisations joined together for the common purpose of breaking down the jury system, breaking down the morale of the jurymen of Dublin. In November we have a newspaper, "An Phoblacht," publishing the names of these jurymen. "An Phoblacht" is a paper which represents or speaks for a great number of people, miscellaneous packs of individuals more or less commonly allied together. Some of the discards from that pack are for the moment to be found strewn around the Opposition Benches. That is the fourth organisation that has joined in this attack on the Dublin jurors, all within five months or so of the raid.

In November, 1927, the jurors of Dublin received what I understand to be their first document from the "Ghosts"—another organisation, I presume, judging by the type of the document and the material contained therein—five organisations at this time engaged in an attempt to break down the morale of Dublin jurors, to get them to disrespect the Irish courts and to disrespect their oath and their God. There is no other object at the back of it. In March and in October, 1928, jurors were again circularised with documents issued by the "Ghosts." This circularising of jurors continued at intervals up to the 23rd January, 1929, when Mr. John White, a Dublin juror, was shot in the street. Subsequently there was a witness shot. There you have fairly complete evidence, though I do not think anyone who goes around the City of Dublin with his eyes and ears open requires any evidence of the fact, that at the present moment and for some eighteen months or two years back, there has been a continuous and deliberate attack on the jury system, an attempt to influence Dublin jurors to disregard their oaths in certain types of cases. Originally, perhaps, the type of cases was small in number. It has since been extended.

In face of a situation such as that the alternatives which confront this or any other Government are: No. 1, the scrapping of the whole jury system, and No. 2, trying to retain for the people of Ireland the sacred right of trial by jury, trying to devise some way by which the people can still have a jury system, but which will take from the shoulders of the jurors or from their persons, a certain amount of the atmosphere of intimidation which has existed. The methods struck on are contained in that Bill, not to disclose the names of the jurors, and to have nine jurors sufficient to carry a verdict. The idea, I take it, of having nine rather than twelve jurors is not so much to convict, but so that it cannot be presumed that if a man was found guilty every one of the twelve jurors had agreed to find him guilty. In other words, if jurors find a certain type of prisoner guilty, if, as is the case at the moment, those jurors are looked on as perambulatory Aunt Sallies to be shot at sight, because they had found a verdict of guilty in a certain kind of case, it will not be so clear if this Bill becomes an Act what particular individual on the jury of twelve constituted the nine. That, I take it, is the reason for having nine men sufficient for a verdict rather than twelve. The withdrawal of the names from the public is merely another attempt to safeguard the jurors from intimidation and irritation from these pamphleteers.

In discussing a Bill of this kind, credit must be given to the majority of jurors of Dublin, who have fearlessly and relentlessly carried out their duties to the people and to the State for the past two years. In face of this type of organised intimidation which has been directed against them, and in face of the constant pamphleteering of the pamphleteers, the jurors of Dublin City have done something in the last two years which the people of Ireland as a whole should be proud of, and which should make them feel that there is good stuff still in this State, that there are white men still left walking around the city of Dublin, men who will go about their ordinary avocations with threatening letters in their pockets, while comrades are shot down, and carry on fearlessly because they believe it is right.

The brave men are those who look down the barrel of a gun. Frequently and commonly the poltroon will be found behind the butt, but the man who looks down the barrel and goes about his duty is one white man, and that is what Dublin can boast of to-day. It is in the interests of those men, and out of respect for their honesty and courage, that an attempt is being made in this Bill to make their lot one little bit better. If this Bill does not attain its objective, then the thing I like most, in association with the Bill, is the promise of the Minister for Justice that if this intimidation and pamphleteering continues he is prepared to go one step further and establish special courts.

I beg to move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.
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